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Gold Bulls Pick a Fight With the Fed
Gold prices have been falling all month, and it opens the question whether this is a new trend, or can we see a turn around? Well, the latest macro data from the US paints a somewhat gloomy picture for gold in the short term. But beyond that, things get a little murky; and uncertainty is where gold tends to shine.
The US provided a second look at its Q4 GDP, revising it down by two decimals to 2.7% from the flash number. The result shows that the economy remains resilient, despite the actions taken by the Fed. That came in line with the better retail sales and stronger jobs numbers seen earlier in the month, all of which contributed to bringing down the price of gold.
There’s more to the picture
The GDP number was revised lower after considering slower than initially expected consumer spending. Americans are spending less, which means there is trouble in the largest component to the economy. With inflation causing real wages to turn negative for over a year now, people are seeing the pinch in their wallets. While that is overall bad for the people and the economy, because of technical quirks, it can be reflected as positive in the statistics.
One of the larger components driving positive GPD is a shrinking trade deficit. While that sounds good that the country is getting its spending in order, the reason why is worrisome: Americans are buying less, which translates into less imports. And they are buying less because of inflation. With consumer spending under pressure, this is generally a bad sign for the economy in the medium to long term.
Will things turn around?
One of the reasons a recession is expected is because the Fed could keep raising rates, potentially over tightening and causing the economy to falter. On the other hand, if inflation continues to run rampant, then consumers might see their purchasing power devalued so much that it also causes a recession.
Traditionally, gold tends to outperform during a recession as people seek safe havens. So, the prospect of a recession could give some hope that gold could rise sometime in the future. But, for now, with the macro indicators pointing to the economy being able to withstand more tightening, gold bulls are effectively picking a fight with the Fed.
It’s about rising rates
The number of economists forecasting that the Fed will hike by 50bps at the next meeting is still relatively small. Just over a quarter, as a matter of fact. But, it’s a growing consensus; and there are still more than 3 weeks before the meeting. Meanwhile, from the minutes of the last meeting, it turns out the Fed is starting to get worried about the labor market getting too tight.
With the Fed expected to keep raising rates in the short term, the dollar could keep getting stronger. That would make it harder for gold to get back to the $1,900 level. That could change if a recession starts to manifest. But the Fed insists that won’t happen. The data coming out in the next few months will show who is right.


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Mr. Met and Mrs. Met will be at the Citibank in Union Square on Monday, November 18th between 12:00-1:00 PM to promote an exclusive New York Mets ticket presale opportunity for Citi cardholders. Fans will have the opportunity to meet Mr. and Mrs. Met and enter for the chance to win four tickets to opening weekend.
The exclusive presale will begin at 10:00 AM Monday, November 18 and run until Tuesday, November 19 at 11:59 PM. Citi customers will have special access to purchase single home game tickets online at www.mets.com/Citipresale or by calling (718) 507-TIXX, in advance of the general public on Saturday, November 23.
The Citi exclusive presale is the first opportunity for fans to purchase tickets to Opening Day (March 31), and the Subway Series (May 14-15). Fans must use their Citi credit card and Citibank Debit Card to take advantage of this special offer.

domain: news


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Today, Samsung is running very busy because it is continuously rolling out new updates for its devices. With the new updates, it is distributing the latest security patch and One UI 6 firmware for the devices. It is worth noticing that the company has already updated several Galaxy devices, which also include the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4, but it is limited to some countries and is now gradually expanding to more countries.
With the latest development, the company has started expanding the update to the European units of the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4. The update carries firmware version numbers F936BXXU4EWL1 and F721BXXU4EWL1, respectively. It also includes the latest security patch in the form of December 2023, which will enhance the overall security of the devices.
The One UI 6 update is coming with several new features and improvements that are added under several system applications, including Camera, Gallery, Home Screen, Multitasking, Photo Editor, and many more.
In a nutshell, the latest update for the Galaxy devices will improve several functions and add new ways to interact with them. A new security feature is also added for the devices as an auto-blocker which will help users block unwanted malware and other security breach threats. So if you want to take advantage of all the features, you should update your device to the latest version.
To install the latest update on your device, just follow these simple steps: First, open the system settings, then tap on the software update menu, touch the download and button option, and wait for some time until it finishes searching. If it shows a new update available, then tap on the download button.
Meet RowKnee Shaw, our tech maestro at Sam Lover! Dive into the intricacies of One UI and ride the wave of Samsung Firmware updates with his expert guidance. From sleek navigation tips to the latest firmware gems, RowKnee Shaw is your go-to for unlocking the full potential of your Samsung device. Stay tuned for a tech journey like no other!


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Canada has had low adoption rates for financial technology offerings.
According to EY’s FinTech Adoption Index, consumers are behind, but adoption could triple within the next 12 months.
“Only 8.2% of digitally active consumers in Canada have used at least two FinTech products within the last six months,” says Gregory Smith, Partner at EY’s Financial Services Advisory practice. “This puts Canada behind five other countries surveyed, including the US and the UK.”
EY’s Index shows that FinTech adopters are young and wealthy—an important target market for financial services players and are very likely to transition to FinTech services.
“FinTech is relatively recent in Canada, but as the trend continues to catch on, traditional financial services companies will have to be much more aggressive and creative to keep their current customers.”
Part of the reason why FinTech adoption in Canada is so low is because consumers don’t know what products and services are available. For digitally active respondents who haven’t used two or more FinTech products in the past six months, more than half (57.2%) say they were unaware the products existed. Only 10.3% of Canadians say they’re not using FinTech because they don’t trust them.
“Canadian financial institutions have traditionally enjoyed consistently high levels of consumer trust,” says Smith. “And yet only 10% of digitally active consumers report lack of trust as a reason for not using FinTech products. This finding shakes up our understanding of how far Canadians’ trust goes, and is certainly something for traditional players to make note of.”
It’s no surprise that young Canadians use FinTech products the most. Almost 15% of Canadian respondents between the ages of 18 and 34 years old used at least two FinTech products in the past six months, followed by those aged 35 to 54 (9.8%). Less than 2% of those aged 55 and older reported the same usage.
“These young Canadian FinTech adopters tend to also be high earners,” says Smith. “They will become even more valuable for financial services providers as time goes on.”


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The activity came following a seven-year long examination incited by scores of protests from rivals.
By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – EU antitrust controllers hit Google with a record 2.4-billion-euro ($2.7 billion) fine to favor its own particular shopping administration, taking an intense line in the first of three tests of its strength in looks and cell phone working frameworks.
It is the greatest fine the European Commission has ever forced on a solitary organization in an antitrust case, surpassing a 1.06-billion-euro authorize passed on against U.S. chip-maker Intel <INTC.O> in 2009 and goes a long ways past what U.S. controllers have ever fined a tech organization.
European Union rivalry boss Margrethe Vestager on Tuesday gave Google 90 days to quit favoring its own particular shopping administration in web pursuits or face a further day by day punishment of up to 5 percent of parent organization Alphabet’s <GOOGL.O> normal day by day worldwide income.
“Google’s procedure for its correlation shopping administration wasn’t just about drawing in clients. It wasn’t just about improving its item than those of its adversaries. Rather, Google has mishandled its market predominance as a web index,” she told a news meeting.
The fine will be simple for the world’s greatest internet searcher to ingest, yet Google should now move quick to fulfill Vestager’s worries while restricting the more extended term hit to its exceptionally lucrative inquiry business. It likewise leaves other tech organizations thinking about how far Vestager may go to compel U.S. tech Goliath to yield more ground to littler contenders.
Vestager has turned out to be one of the world’s most aggressive antitrust controllers with forces to force multi-billion dollar fines and drive organizations to roll out radical improvements to their organizations.
A year ago, the previous Danish economy serve requested Apple to pay Ireland unpaid assessments of 13 billion euros as it administered the organization had gotten unlawful state help. Apple is engaging the choice.
The choice is the first of a progression of rivalry decisions that Google faces from the European Commission, which has not contracted from going up against U.S. tech Goliath, for example, Alphabet, which has yearly incomes of $90 billion and a market estimation of $665 billion.
The Commission has likewise accused Google of utilizing its Android portable working framework to smash equals, a case that could possibly be the most harming for the organization, as it is the framework utilized as a part of generally cell phones.
The organization has likewise been blamed for blocking rivals in online inquiry promoting.
The Commission found that Google, with a piece of the overall industry in hunts of more than 90 percent in most European nations, had efficiently given noticeable situation in pursuits to its own examination shopping administration and downgraded those of adversaries in indexed lists.
Vestager said in an announcement that Google had “denied different organizations the opportunity to contend on the benefits and to improve. Furthermore, in particular, it denied European purchasers a veritable selection of administrations and the full advantages of advancement.”
Google said its information indicated individuals favored connections taking them specifically to items they need and not to sites where they need to rehash their inquiry.
“We consciously can’t help contradicting the conclusions reported today. We will survey the Commission’s choice in detail as we consider an interest, and we anticipate proceeding to put forth our defense,” Kent Walker, Google’s general guidance, said in an announcement.
Letters in order, whose offers were down around 1 percent, said in a different explanation it would audit the Commission’s formal choice yet anticipated that would gather the fine in the second quarter.
The greatest hazard to Google is not the fine but rather the progressions requested to its business, said Richard Windsor, a free money related examiner who tracks rivalry among the greatest U.S. what’s more, Asian web and portable organizations.
Google should brief the Commission on what measures it intends to take inside 60 days of the choice and present intermittent reports. Eight complainants were included for the situation which the EU declined to name in accordance with its arrangement.
As indicated by Windsor’s estimations, the 2.42-billion-euro fine speaks to only 22.6 days of the working income that Alphabet announced in its most recent quarter.
“What can possibly hurt Google and be much all the more harming is the thing that cures the European Commission might possibly force on Google therefore,” Windsor said. “That is the place the genuine harm should be possible.”
The fine, identical to 3 percent of Alphabet’s income, is the greatest administrative mishap for Google, which settled with U.S. authorities in 2013 without a punishment subsequent to consenting to change some of its hunt hones.
The Commission’s activity takes after a seven-year examination provoked by scores of protests from adversaries, for example, U.S. buyer survey site Yelp <YELP.N>, TripAdvisor <TRIP.O>, UK value examination site Found-em, News Corp <NWSA.O> and campaigning bunch Fair Search.
News Corp said it extolled “the European Commission’s authority in going up against the biased conduct of Google in the examination shopping industry.”
“We unequivocally trust that the manhandle of calculations by prevailing computerized stages ought to be of worry to each nation and organization looking for a reasonable, focused and inventive society,” it said in an announcement, blaming Google for benefiting from “com modifying content and empowering the expansion of defective and fake news.”
The punishment installment for inability to agree would add up to around $12 million a day in light of Alphabet’s 2016 turnover of $90.3 billion.
“This choice is a distinct advantage. The Commission affirmed that purchasers don’t perceive what is most significant for them on the world’s most utilized internet searcher yet rather what is best for Google,” said Monique Go-yens, chief general of EU shopper bunch BEUC.
Thomas Vinje, lawful advice to Fair-search, respected the Commission’s discoveries and asked it to follow up on Google’s Android portable working framework following its 2013 protest that Google limited rivalry in programming running on cell phones.


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Despite its many advantages, one of the issues with PC gaming is the fact that it can be much easier to cheat in games. While not an issue in single-player games, multiplayer titles with cheaters can ruin the experience for others. As a result, Bungie has now announced that Destiny 2 will soon implement anti-cheating technology.
Ahead of the upcoming Destiny 2 showcase on the 24th of August, celebrating 7 years of Destiny and giving fans a look at the future of the franchise, the team at Bungie revealed that “Our partnership with BattlEye will soft launch next Season. Just another step toward a level playing field for all.”
Our partnership with BattlEye will soft launch next Season. Just another step toward a level playing field for all.
— Destiny 2 (@DestinyTheGame) August 19, 2021
BattlEye, self-described as the “THE ANTI-CHEAT GOLD STANDARD”, has been used in many games including ARK; Rainbow Six: Siege; ARMA 2; Insurgency; PUBG; Fortnite and Escape From Tarkov – to name a few.
Destiny 2 has struggled with issues of cheating in the past, with the developer Bungie even previously advertising a position for an anti-cheating Data Engineer at the company. It seems they ultimately decided to partner with BattlEye. It will be interesting to see what the team has to say on the matter at the upcoming Destiny showcase.
Kitguru says: What do you think of cheating in multiplayer games? Have you encountered any cheaters in Destiny 2? What do you want to see from the upcoming showcase? Let us know down below.


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Atari, a company well known for its contribution to history or gaming has bought a cloud startup called Wonder. The startup focuses on developing Wonder OS with a lot of features including streaming games from both local PCs and cloud servers.
Rovio Entertainment, the company behind a well known game Angry Birds and a lesser known cloud gaming service Hatch has announced a change in their business strategy.
Out of all the limitations Stadia has the most upsetting one is that its mobile app works only with Pixel phones. Which means that even if a user owns the bundle, with the gamepad, Pro subscription and is willing to pay extra for the games, they still need to own a very specific smartphone. A smartphone that is not as popular as, say, iPhone or Samsung Galaxy.


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Blade Runner's art director Syd Mead is a huge fan of Tesla's new Cybertruck
- Blade Runner artistic director Syd Mead called the Cybertruck "stylistically breathtaking."
- Elon Musk had previously said the truck would look like a vehicle from the popular sci-fi movie.
- Mead also told Business Insider that he was "truly flattered" that Musk had taken inspiration from the movie.
Syd Mead, the artistic director behind popular sci-fi movie Blade Runner, said in an emailed statement to Business Insider that Tesla's new Cybertruck "has completely changed the vocabulary of the personal truck market design."Mead called the futuristic-looking design "stylistically breathtaking" and said it went beyond his expectations.Advertisement
When Elon Musk first announced the truck last November, he told Recode's Kara Swisher that the truck would "look like something out of 'Blade Runner.'" Mead said in his statement that, "as a long time admirer of Elon Musk, [he] was truly flattered" to hear that the Cybertruck would take a cue from the movie.
NOW WATCH: Why air travel is so cheap
- These Indian teenagers have come up with a queue management solution for retailers to ensure people don’t crowd stores
- Android users can share location using Plus Codes in Google Maps
- Delhi: Medical Director of COVID-19-dedicated LNJP Hospital tests positive for coronavirus
- At least two employees of MEA test positive for coronavirus
- Arvind Kejriwal says Delhi is four steps ahead of Coronavirus, can't have permanent lockdown


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The team behind ice cream specialist Rays Ice Cream is celebrating its second anniversary in Royal Wootton Bassett.
Owner Hadi Brooks and her team opened their shop in the summer of 2017 in Potters Walk, just behind Boots at 134 High Street. In addition to celebrating the shop’s second birthday, the company has also been re-inspected for food hygiene and awarded five stars.
Hadi said, “It’s fantastic to celebrate two years in Royal Wootton Bassett. My thanks to Claire Brice and the team for their hard work and our customers for supporting our locally made ice cream.”
The shop is run by Claire, a former student of Royal Wootton Bassett Academy who added, “I can’t believe it’s been two years already; the time has really flown by. I’ve got to know some of our regular customers so well and really enjoy seeing new customers taste our ice cream for the first time – they can’t believe how lovely it is.”
Made in Wiltshire, the artisan ice cream brand now has a commercial kitchen in Westmead in Swindon and is growing in popularity due to its ingredients including local whole milk and double cream with no cheap fillers.
The ice cream is made in small batches and churned slowly for a short amount of time – so it’s not full of air. Adding some air is an essential part of the ice cream making process – it stops it becoming rock hard. Many brands have as much as 70 per cent air in their products. Rays Ice Cream has on average 12 per cent air.
The team can make up to 150 flavours of ice cream, including gluten-free and vegan flavours. There is even a dog-friendly version. For the wholesale market, they can offer up to 35 flavours.
For more information on Rays Ice Cream visit www.RaysIceCream.co.uk
Pictured above: Claire Brice, Manager of Rays Ice Cream


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While it's true that switching to paper straws isn’t a cure-all for saving the turtles, the oceans, and the rest of the planet, providing single-use plastic alternatives is necessary as cities and countries begin to phase out single-use plastics like in California and ban them entirely like in Canada, the European Union, and most recently, England.
That’s where companies like Loliware come in. With a brand new $15.4 million in funding, the New York City and Bay Area-headquartered startup is aiming to continue the blue economy revolution, replacing single-use plastics with seaweed.
Bans like those passed last month in England aren’t impactful without replacements, Loliware’s CEO Sea Briganti told the food and agriculture tech publication AgFunder in an interview.
“Bans are only effective and impactful if you can provide businesses with solutions,” she said. “It’s not fair, otherwise. We have to be collaborative here.”
To replace plastic once and for all, Loliware is collaborating with nature. The startup partners with farmers all around the world to grow and harvest its seaweed, never touching what grows naturally in the wild. After harvesting their seaweed, Loliware turns it into ‘SeaTech’ pellets to create products, and then in circular economy fashion, used products go right back into the ground.
Loliware was founded in 2016 and three years later they began developing a seaweed straw as the great straw ban debate reached a height. According to AgFunder, they wanted to be inclusive because outright straw bans affect people who are disabled, elderly, or children. Thus, their first product was the Blue Carbon Straw: a seaweed-based straw that can decompose as fast as a banana peel and enrich the soil it's composted in.
Loliware currently works with Missouri-based plastic manufacturer Sinclair and Rush to produce 100 million straws a year, providing them to mostly food service groups. Currently, they have 15 customers, but according to Briganti, they will launch 20 more this year, a mix of large companies and small businesses.
But Loliware’s mission goes far beyond the straw. Because of the pelletization process, Loliware’s seaweed pellets are fully compatible with existing plastic extruding equipment, which is a barrier to many other bioplastic products. Thus, they hope to show that seaweed can compete with plastic at scale.
Furthermore, aside from replacing plastic straws and other products, seaweed is one of the best natural forms of carbon capture in the world, the company says, even more than land-based trees. It captures 5-20 times the carbon of terrestrial forests and permanently stores it in the seafloor.
“By harnessing the regenerative and carbon-capturing powers of seaweed, our products replace plastic while healing the ocean by disappearing,” Loliware says on its website.
In addition to capturing carbon, the usage of seaweed has another environmental advantage: it doesn’t require the fertilizer of crops like canola, corn, and tree-based options, and avoids the notable biodiversity loss offender, monoculture.
Thus with all the benefits, Loliware says it tackles the triple threat of climate change, plastic pollution, and biodiversity loss.
According to the company, the $15.4 million in Series A funding makes Loliware the market’s best-funded seaweed materials tech company. The funding will go towards research and development of novel seaweed resins and new products like cups, utensils, and films. In response to England’s new ban, they will even be launching their seaweed utensils in London in May.
This round included investors like L Catterton, CityRock Venture Partners, Alumni Ventures Group, Geekdom Fund, Ehukai Investments, 5 Pillars Capital, and founders of Kilara Capital, Kiss the Ground, Nutiva, Blue Bottle Coffee, as well as their manufacturer Sinclair and Rush.
“Climate change is a worldwide problem, and our pelletized seaweed resins are a step toward a solution,” Briganti said via the company’s press release. “By reducing CO2 emissions and strengthening the ocean-based ‘blue economy,’ our seaweed-derived products make it clear that regenerating the Earth is good business.”
She adds: “Demand for seaweed-based products promotes the creation of seaweed-farming operations in coastal communities worldwide. This not only creates jobs where they are needed most but these undersea forests filter and oxygenate oceans while capturing carbon.”


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L. L. Bean introduces One Boston tote bag
Limited edition product benefits charity
Hundreds of people lined up outside L.L. Bean on Friday to get a piece of Fenway Park history and to help charity.
A hundred special edition tote bags remained in the store by late in the morning. They are made from the tarp that was once used to cover Fenway Park. Proceeds will go to the One Fund Boston.
The fund supports the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings.
"I haven't had the opportunity to contribute to this fund and I think it's a great thing for L.L. Bean to be contributing 100 percent of the funds and it's my way of making a donation," Janine Lauze said.
The Fenway tarp created about 3,500 tote bags.
"I think people were really excited to get a piece of Red Sox and L.L. Bean history while at the same time giving back to the Boston community and really helping those most in need," Mac McKeever of L.L. Bean said.
Other L.L. Bean stores in New England are also selling the bag.


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A £250 million water plant built to protect hundreds of thousands of homes from the effects of drought has been shut down, The Telegraph has learned.
When a further million people were banned from using garden hoses in the south of England, Thames Water admitted that a major water desalination plant opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in 2010 will not be operational until next year at the earliest.
The company repeatedly assured regulators in January that the Beckton, east London plant, was ready to be turned on “for drought use”, claiming it would help supply up to 400,000 households with fresh drinking water every day.
But The Telegraph has been informed that the factory, the only one in the UK designed to turn salty seawater into freshwater, has in fact been shut down over whether it has ever been fully operational.
Instead, the company has asked bill payers to stop washing their cars and watering their lawns pending an expected ban on garden hoses in the capital.
Senior industry sources suggested the plant has been effectively shut down by Thames Water over concerns about high operating costs, compared to asking customers to limit their own use.
The water company made a profit of 488 million pounds last year. Thames Water has raised bills by more than four per cent this year, with the cost of a family home in the area rising to around £415 a year.
On Wednesday, a source at Ofwat, the water regulator, said it would look into Thames Water’s management of the plant during this year’s shortages.
It comes as households in Sussex and Kent have been banned from garden hoses and sprinklers as water companies blamed the driest July on record.


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There’s a Lot to Like About Disney Stock
The entertainment institution has a ridiculously broad reach in society and a variety of offerings with positive expectations and catalysts
Disneyland has traditionally been described as the “happiest place on earth.” As it turns out, investors in Disney stock (DIS) should be feeling a lot of joy as well given all of their positive assets and catalysts.
Currently trading at $194.77 a share, Disney stock is already up about 11% so far in 2021. This comes despite a global pandemic that has shuttered and inhibited their typically thriving theme park locations. However, few companies can boast the broad range of diverse products and resources of the entertainment giant and so with the stock already trading at or near all-time highs, the future looks bright because of the litany of catalysts that could potentially keep the needle moving on the price for some time to come.
Rosy-cheeked optimism about the future of Disney stock doesn’t imply that it’s a perfect commodity with a guaranteed trip to the moon. Like other companies, they also have shortcomings (Significant lost revenue during the pandemic and debt to name two) but for the purposes of this piece we will focus on the positives, which are in abundance.
The parks will re-open with gusto: Disney owns and operates a total of 12 parks, both domestic and abroad. The pandemic has obviously created lengthy shutdowns and other impositions that have dramatically cut the number of visitors they see stream through the gate on an annual basis. Once Covid is better in hand and people feel more comfortable venturing out and traveling, the crowds should quickly return and with extreme force. With so many people effectively being restricted for any length of time for the first time in their lives, the desire to once again experience the pleasures of entertainment and travel should be overwhelming. Disney has always been a gold standard in these industries and as such should reap some of the biggest rewards once they are no longer inhibited.
The tide may already be starting to turn, as California announced this week that Disney, along with other theme parks and professional sports venues can start admitting customers again…


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A carpet bomb launch will see Samsung’s new phone arrive on all four major carriers — AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile — at the same time, at the same price. But which carrier is the best choice for the Galaxy S3?
Unlike the iPhone, which usually remains heavily wrapped in mystery until its unveiling on stage, we already know quite a lot about the Galaxy S3. Read on for CPU, GPU, Android, and camera specs of Samsung’s new smartphone.
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Recreational pot brownies in Colorado are about to get weaker. Or at least, easier to break up into manageable doses.
Colorado marijuana regulators have drafted an emergency rule aimed at making it easier for new marijuana users to tell how much pot they're eating. A draft of the emergency rules, obtained by The Associated Press before its public release, requires makers of edible pot to physically demark their products so that consumers can "intuitively determine" how much constitutes a dose of marijuana's intoxicating ingredient, THC.
Colorado's rules already require edible pot to be sold in "servings" of 10 milligrams of THC. But many consumers have complained they can't tell what a serving is.
Edible marijuana producers say they'll comply with the rules by making milder products.


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Centice Corp. looking to raise $8M
After burning through $25 million in venture capital funding over the years, Centice Corp. is trying to raise an additional $8 million in a fourth round of venture funding. The money will be used to rev up marketing of substance-identification kits that it sells to law enforcement.
The Series D round targets a combination of new and existing investors, CFO Rob McLaughlin says. The company already has nailed down $1 million in bridge financing, funding for tiding over the company until it wraps up the current round.
The company’s signature product is the MFL (Mobile Field Labs) 3000 device. Commander Phil Price of the Multi-Agency Narcotics Squad in Cherokee County, Ga., says an officer simply pops open an unknown pill or capsule and points a laser in the device at the substance inside.
Price says the MFL 3000 performed well – and better than chemical tests that have been used. “This is a more definitive test,” Price says. “Something you can feel comfortable with. I think this device and others like it will be the future.”
That’s what Morrisville-based Centice is betting on. It’s selling the products for $13,900 each, company spokeswoman Sara Vinson says.
McLaughlin hopes to wrap up the $8 million round of fundraising some time in the fall. The funds are already being used to hire new workers, he says.
The company now employs about 16 people. In October of 2011, co-founder Prasant Potuluri told Triangle Business Journal that Centice had 20 employees and would hire five more by the first quarter of 2012. Prasant, now CEO, could not be reached for comment.
McLaughlin won’t disclose Centice’s revenue, but concedes that it’s “minimal.” He’s confident the funding round can be completed. Any other options, such as selling the company, are off the table “at this time,” he adds.
Centice was founded in 2004 as a spinoff from Duke University and has raised more than $25 million. Investors have included Durham-based Aurora Funds; Spokane, Wash.-based Fulcrum Financial Group; Moscow, Russia-based S-Group Capital Management; Novak Biddle Venture Partners, of Bethesda, Md.; and Innovation Ventures, which is based in Wilmington, Del.
Lauren Ohnesorge covers information technology and entrepreneurship.
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The New York Observer: If Walmart Is Bad for the... →
We bet all Walmart wants to do right now is sink down into one of its faux leather recliners and watch some stupid rom-com on a $199.98 flat screen. It’s been kind of a rough weekend for America’s favorite mega-retailer. First, there was the New York Times story about executives hushing up a vast Mexican bribery conspiracy to win market dominance. And now, in celebration of Earth Day, a local...
Capital New York: A Walmart-bribe story set in... →
Local opponents of Walmart are seizing on allegations that the company paid bribes in Mexico for building permits and other government approvals to bolster their argument that opening a store here would be bad for New York. The union representing retail workers, RWDSU, issued a statement in response to yesterday’s Times story about the alleged bribes. Minutes later, Public Advocate Bill...
New York Post: City pols in Wal Mex vex →
Reports that Walmart bribed Mexican officials gave new ammunition yesterday to local mayoral hopefuls opposed to the chain coming here. “The corporation’s tactics of bribery, scheming and corruption are the latest in a litany of despicable business practices,” said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Public Advocate Bill de Blasio and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer called again for...
Wal-Mart Accused Of Bribing Its Way Into... →
According to the NY Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Barstow, Wal-Mart paid millions of dollars in bribes to Mexican authorities to expedite the company’s rapid growth in the country, then conducted an internal investigation that served as a cover-up. Wal-Mart’s policy on ethics states, “Never cover up or ignore an ethics problem,” but presumably...
New York Times: Vast Mexico Bribery Case Hushed Up... →
Former Walmart executive Sergio Cicero Zapata, who resigned from Wal-Mart de Mexico in 2004, said the growth strategy in Mexico was to build hundreds of new stores so fast that competitors would not have time to react. Bribes, he explained, accelerated growth. They got zoning maps changed. They made environmental objections vanish. Permits that typically took months to process magically...
For Immediate Release: Walmart Accused of...
NYT Reports Pay-Offs, Followed by Cover-ups, at Retailer’s Highest Levels In Mexico and U.S. Walmart Free NYC Says Latest Allegations Prove Walmart Can’t Be Trusted To Play By the Rules; Urges New York Lawmakers to Conduct Sweeping Investigation Into Retailer’s Practices, including Charitable Contributions New York- Following major breaking news that Walmart de Mexico...
Wal-Mart's CEO paid $18.1 million in 2011 →
CEO Mike Duke earns $18 million. With this kind of money, @Walmart can certainly afford to stay out of NYC! Read more.
DC Coalition Contributes to Delay of Multiple...
Walmart announced that the company will delay construction on five of the six proposed stores in the District of Columbia. This news is a direct response to the hard work of the Respect DC campaign, which has been tireless in its efforts to raise awareness in D.C. about Walmart’s poverty jobs and broken promises. The trend of victories for local community groups seems to have continued into this...
Eco Brooklyn: No To Walmart in NYC →
Eco Brooklyn says they do not want Walmart in New York because “Walmart’s business model is not conducive to the small neighborhood shopping experience that makes New York and Brooklyn so special.” All the more reason to keep NYC Walmart-Free! Read more.
California: Quartz Hill claims victory in fight to... →
After a six-year court battle, the town of Quartz Hill in southern California declared victory in blocking a proposed Walmart store. The efforts were led by a community group called Quartz Hill Cares. This should serve as an important reminder that Walmart will never back down – and that we can’t afford to be complacent. We must remain vigilant in our efforts to make real, lasting change at...
Celebrate Walmart at 50: Tell us why YOU think...
As Walmart celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, we will paint the true story of Walmart and how they undermine our values and re-write the rules of our society. Now, more than ever, Walmart must change. It’s up to us to share our stories and set the direction for next 50 years. The multi-faceted, interactive “50 Years of Walmart” website (walmartat50.org) will highlight people from across...
Walmart (and Pathmark) branded WORST grocery... →
Walmart and Pathmark have placed last in a new ranking of the best supermarkets in America. Three-quarters of the 24,000 shoppers polled by Consumer Reports reported at least one major complaint about the worst-performing chains. Read more.
Newsday: Woman, 73, sues Walmart, alleges age bias →
A 73-year-old South Setauket grandmother has filed a discrimination complaint against the mega store Walmart, alleging her supervisors there fired her because of her age. Anne Squatrito said for the past eight years she was continually pressured to retire from her job at the chain’s East Setauket store, and was asked to do heavy manual labor that was not in her job description as a...
L.A. council votes too late to block Chinatown... →
The council votes to draft a law temporarily banning large chain stores from opening in the neighborhood. But the firm had obtained permits a day earlier. The near-miss in LA should serve as a reminder for us all to act quickly when a new Walmart is proposed in our neighborhoods.
Discrimination at Long Island Walmart? →
An ailing 73-year-old Long Island grandmother filed a discrimination complaint against retail giant Walmart — claiming she was fired after she failed to move a heavy truckload full of goods on her own at the Nesconset store. “It’s outrageous,’’ said her lawyer. “They were just trying to get rid of her. It’s blatant age discrimination.” Read more.
Sales Momentum Continues at Wal-Mart →
Now that Walmart is seeing significant growth, they don’t really need to come to NYC anymore now do they? :)
New York Observer: Walmart Calls for Community... →
There’s laundry list of meetings that Walmart and Related Companies have skipped around the city, according to the Walmart Free New York coalition: Walmart skipped multiple public hearings held by the New York City Council in 2011 Related Companies agreed to discuss its Gateway II proposal with the East New York Community Board, only to cancel 20 minutes before the meeting was slated to...
Walmart warehouse workers fired en masse in what... →
A Walmart distribution center in Mira Loma, California, has laid off a group of Inland Empire warehouse workers. Workers say the decision was made because they’re trying to gain higher wages and safer working conditions. It’s the latest dispute at a facility that’s become the focal point for labor complaints in the warehousing business. Read the full story. This retaliation is yet another sign...
We have tried to begin a constructive dialogue with Walmart by reaching out to...– Walmart Free NYC’s statement to Walmart board member M. Michele Burns. Upon attempting to deliver this letter, Walmart has chosen to sit behind locked doors and refuse the sincere requests of Walmart Free NYC and OUR Walmart members to open a dialogue


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RICHMOND, Va. (March 6, 2013)—Police in suburban Richmond, Va., tracked down two rare baboon tarantulas with the help of the owner of the shop from which the spiders were swiped.
Aaron Reinhard, the owner of the Beasts and Bugs shop in a Richmond suburb, did some online investigating and learned the tarantulas had been recently sold for $75.
He let county detectives know and soon the case of the missing spiders led to the arrest of Deion T. Dickens, 20, on grand larceny and other charges.
Reinhard told the Richmond Times-Dispatch the "kid was stupid," adding that the baboon tarantulas could easily have been sold for $500.
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DAILY LIBERAL – by Mark Griggs – “MERINO ewes topped the Narromine store sale for the second consecutive month at $161 in a yarding of 14,000 head featuring an 11,500 head dispersal of John Rae and family’s Pentdale Nominees, Carwell Station, Quambone last Wednesday.”
SHEEP CENTRAL – by Terry Sim – “OTHER Australian states are preparing for the potential national mandatory electronic identification of sheep and goats, Victorian Agriculture Minister Jaala Pulford said this week.”
SHEEP CENTRAL – “PEAK wool grower body WoolProducers Australia has opened nominations for its ‘Raising the Baa’ Leadership in Agriculture Program.”
SHEEP CENTRAL – “MURDOCH University graduate Lydia Inglis was awarded the Young Professionals in Agriculture Forum top honours for 2018 in Perth last week.”
SHEEP CENTRAL – “RESTOCKERS and breeders took advantage of softer prices for Merino ewes and wethers on AuctionsPlus last week.”
SHEEP CENTRAL – “AUSTRALIAN Wool Innovation has released a guide to planning for a non-mulesed Merino enterprise among recent new publications from its breech strike research development and extension program.”
ABC NEWS – by Tara de Landgrafft, Mark Bennett – “The rise and rise of the price of wool is seeing the nation’s farmers scrambling to rebuild their flocks.
It has been a rollercoaster ride over the past 30 years, but the future of wool is looking bright with international buyers once again looking to buy Australian wool.
In Western Australia’s remote Nullarbor pastoral region, 365km east of Kalgoorlie, Ross and Jo Wood have returned to Rawlinna station to shear 65,000 sheep.”
FARM WEEKLY – by Mal Gill – “CHINA’S next winter fashion fad could determine the direction the WA wool market takes in the next few months.
For the past two northern hemisphere winters, stylish women’s fashion jackets made in a variety of styles, lengths and colours from an innovative double-faced woollen fabric, has driven apparel manufacturer and wool processor demand for WA’s natural fibre.”
NORTH QUEENSLAND REGISTER – by Bruce McLeish, Elders northern zone wool manager – “CURRENCY dipped nicely again just before wool auctions began in the past week allowing for a stable market in US dollar terms.
The overall increase of 27c in local currency terms, coincidentally gaining exactly what it lost the previous week. AWEX’s eastern market indicator closed on 1778c.”
RURAL LIFE – “Wool prices for all types showed positive signs, with price increases across all categories at last week’s South Island wool sale, brokers say.
With 30% of the offering lambs wool, competition was strong. There was also plenty of competition from buyers for good colour fleece, Roger Fuller, of CP Wool, said.”


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The software giant said it would cut 18,000 jobs within the next year — about 14% of the company’s 125,000 employees. That’s by far the largest round of layoffs in the company’s history.
The previous record came during the lowest point of the Great Recession, when Microsoft (Tech30)cut more than 5,000 jobs in 2009 — the first mass layoff in the company’s history.,
Most of the latest round of layoffs — 12,500 — will come from Nokia’s devices and services business that Microsoft recently bought. In a memo to Microsoft’s staff, Nadella said that Microsoft found many redundancies between the two companies, including both professional and factory workers.


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There was a slight panic among the Facebook creator community earlier this month after news broke that Facebook plans to shut down its Audience Network ad network’s mobile web arm. These creators wondered — wrongly — if this meant that the social network was shutting down its video monetization program. But instead of contacting their partner managers at Facebook, who serve as the company’s creator liaisons, the creators turned to various Facebook Groups dedicated to creators for answers. “When you go onto Groups, people like me and others give advice. It’s like a little community,” said one Facebook creator who asked to remain anonymous.
Facebook creators are not the only ones turning to one another to stay in the know on platform changes. YouTube creators also use group chats on platforms like Discord to alert one another to unannounced algorithm updates and trade tips on how often to insert mid-roll ads in their videos (every two-and-a-half minutes) and how to design their videos’ thumbnails (face on the left side so it’s not blocked by the timestamp). While Facebook and YouTube employ partner managers that are meant to provide this type of support to creators, creators have grown frustrated with partner managers not providing advanced notice or sufficient insight into platforms’ changes. In their stead, the creators have found they can often provide more comprehensive support to one another.
“It’s easier as creators to share information with other creators because we personally experience these [changes] on the daily compared to partner managers. They are just given information,” said Roi Fabito, a YouTube creator who goes by the name “Guava Juice” and has more than 14 million subscribers on the platform.
Creator-centric group chats have been around for at least a few years. The sizes of these typically private, invite-only forums can vary from tens to hundreds of creators. But creators have found these forums to be more vital within the past year or so as Facebook and YouTube make changes to their platforms’ algorithms in response to scrutiny from regulators, consumer advocacy groups and advertisers.
YouTube creators’ group chats were abuzz in September 2019 after YouTube announced that it stop serving targeted ads on videos that it considered kids’ content. “Nobody knew what to do, so creators were reaching out [to ask one another] what to do,” said Carter Sharer, a YouTube creator with more than 6 million subscribers who also serves as CEO of Team RAR, a collective of YouTube creators.
Platforms’ algorithm changes are particularly popular topics of discussions in these group chats. One group chat on Discord that Sharer belongs to has messages organized into 12 categories, including one dedicated to YouTube’s algorithm. Some creators feel like the group chats are the best option for finding out about changes to the platforms’ algorithms and how those changes may impact their videos.
“I don’t know if even YouTube gives the YouTube reps enough information [about the platform’s algorithm changes and their potential impacts on creators]. Even for YouTube, it’s hard for them to see how it’s going to affect people until they actually make changes,” said a YouTube creator who asked to remain anonymous.
In these groups chats, creators will often relay information they’ve gleaned about potential algorithm updates to see if others have heard the same or seen the change reflected in their videos’ analytics. In some cases, the members of the group chats have access to programs that are able to scan wide swaths of the platforms to gauge whether a change has been made that impacts specific creator communities, Sharer said. Fabito recalled one instance when a fellow creator posted a message to a group chat telling the other members to delete all copyrighted songs from their videos because YouTube was taking a stricter stance on people using that protected music.
Helpful as these groups chats can be for creators, they are not necessarily a replacement for creators’ partner managers at the platforms.
After YouTube announced the kids’ content change in September, Sharer talked to his YouTube partner manager who offered to run a program that would assess his channel’s risk of being penalized by the change. The program judged the risk for Sharer’s channel to be minimal, but the partner manager also made clear that the assessment was not a guarantee of how the actual change would affect his channel. Ultimately YouTube’s assessment proved correct for Sharer, but it wasn’t until Sharer talked to more creators with channels similar to his and heard that they weren’t worried about the change that his own worries subsided.
“Since we’re all creators, we’re here to support each other because we’re all against the algorithm, to be honest,” Fabito said.
Member ExclusiveFuture of TV Briefing: Inside Netflix’s ongoing talks with agency executives about its ad-supported plans
This week’s Future of TV Briefing looks at how Netflix's advertising plans are shaping up -- or not -- based on its recent conversations with ad buyers and show producers.
How TikTok’s ad revenue-sharing program TikTok Pulse works
In this video, Digiday senior media editor Tim Peterson breaks down the mechanics of how TikTok determines which videos qualify for a revenue split and relays insights from UM Worldwide's Stacey Stewart on how TikTok Pulse's tests with advertisers have fared so far.
The Rundown: Disney+ tops 152 million subscribers, but growth slows in the U.S.
Disney's Disney+ saw subscriber growth accelerate in the quarter that ended July 2. But, the media company's flagship streaming service did see subscriber growth slow in the U.S.
SponsoredHow brands are activating Gen Z and millennial TikTok audiences
Roland Hamilton, senior vice president of global licensing, Trusted Media Brands Although TikTok is widely considered a Gen Z platform, the video-sharing app also boasts a high number of millennial users. With more than 100 million active users in the U.S. alone, 32% of TikTok’s global audience is between the ages of 25–34. This large […]
Member ExclusiveFuture of TV Briefing: Video publishers look to strike a balance between YouTube Shorts and traditional YouTube
This week's Future of TV Briefing looks at the relationship between YouTube Shorts and traditional YouTube videos as video publishers adopt the former in hopes of contributing to -- and not cannibalizing -- the latter.
Instagram will shut down its affiliate commerce program on Aug. 31
Instagram started officially testing the affiliate program in July 2021 and expanded it to its short-form vertical video product Reels in March.


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Binfield gamesmaker Steve Moody said 2012 is ‘the best summer of my life’ after he appeared as an industrial worker in Danny Boyle’s Olympics opening ceremony.
Steve, 61, wore a Victorian-style outfit as part of a large group showcasing Britain’s industrial heritage.
He has also been working as a games maker at Dorney Lake in Windsor and said he has ‘loved every minute’ of it.
He said: “It was so exciting for me to take part. Was it nerve-racking? Not really.
“We had 24 rehearsals beforehand, as well as three in front of a full stadium, so we were well-drilled.
“I was in the industrial workers section. It has just been an amazing experience for me and without a doubt, this is the best summer of my life.”


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As farmers protest across Europe, blockading cities, smashing through police barricades, and dumping manure, European politicians are falling over themselves to promise increased trade barriers against African food and agriculture imports.
But how is it that locking out Kenyan horticulture, South African oranges and Tanzanian sunflower seeds has become such a burning issue for Africa’s biggest agricultural trading partner?
The answer lies in pest control.
For when the European Union launched its Green Deal climate action plan in 2019, with the noble aim of reducing the emissions driving climate change, it threw in an extra green target of phasing out the use of pesticides.
It seemed a sweet political move for the European Commission at the time, following countless distorted campaigns from environmentalists exploiting the membership and revenue power of claiming food and drink contamination and environmental catastrophe.
Facts weren’t a necessity in this: the point was scary headlines. Just one example, now impacting most of Africa, was claims that one of the world’s newest and cleanest insecticides was wiping out bees, essential to the pollination of human food. It made a powerful narrative, creating images of a future world devoid of pollinated fruits.
It just didn’t happen to be true. The pesticides don’t affect bees and the bee population is rising rapidly everywhere, including in nations still using the targeted pest controls. But the bee campaign, and many others claiming far-fetched health and environmental risks, had, by then, driven public opinion and pseudo-science into a frenzy of opposition to pesticides.
The timing couldn’t have been worse, as climate change began inexorably increasing the range and volume of plant pests and diseases.
Thus, as Europe rolled out ever more bans of pesticides deemed low risk elsewhere, its agricultural production began stagnating and declining. It gave farmers rounds of compensation, rising to now half their income. But, as the pest losses mounted, European producers began protesting against ‘unfair’ competition from imports still allowed to use pest protection, very often from Africa.
This saw Europe turn to the mission of enforcing its extra pesticide ‘precautions’ in Africa too. It began by moving most of the Maximum Residue Levels for these risk-approved pesticides to a technical zero. This triggered a World Trade Organisation dispute that is still running, driven by the US and India, but including multiple African nations, decrying the effective pesticide bans as trade barriers.
The EU then additionally introduced new lists of quarantine pests, most of which required the banned pesticides to control.
African agricultural exporters were caught in an effective pincer movement, locked out by pests they could no longer control.
In West Africa, the impact on the cocoa sector, which alone accounts for over a third of all African agricultural exports to the EU, has been so severe, that cocoa prices have now soared. Coffee has also been hurt, while, in Southern Africa, the fruit and nut industries, which account for another 14 percent of Africa’s total agricultural exports to the EU, are hanging on a thread. Last year, Europe demanded South Africa chill all oranges for export at below 2 degrees Celsius for 20 days before shipping instead of using pest protection, triggering industry warnings of a 20 percent fall in exports and thousands of job losses.
But, in Kenya, efforts to maintain flower, fruit, and vegetable exports to the EU have triggered even greater extremes, with the local banning of pesticides targeted by Europe drawing warnings from the CEO of the Kenya Fresh Produce Consortium of a $1bn food production loss per year. More recent estimates show the country will move into a food crisis in 2025 as a result.
Africans cannot survive if maize is left for the Fall ArmyWorm that destroys up to 70 percent of crops, or cocoa is given up to mirids that also damage over 70 percent, wheat to destruction from leaf rust, and coffee to coffee berry borer.
African governments are juggling between limiting their export collapse – to maintain import funds without which all development slows – and ensuring food production and food security at home.
It is a dire trade-off – being driven by a policy so divisive in Europe that the European Parliament, last October, voted against a new bill to further halve its pesticide use, while EU President Ursula von der Leyen has said pesticide withdrawals have now become “a symbol of polarisation” for the EU.
In Africa, they are creating poverty and hunger. and reversed development, and now the solution to Europe’s newest political protests over them is to hit Africa harder still.
Jenny Luesby is a development consultant spspecializingn climate change and the publisher of FarmBizAfrica.com


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Tuesday, 18 March 2014
V.A.T. ... Venues Against Taxation!
Rachel Ainsley, landlady at the Dolphin explains that “although the scrapping of the Beer Duty Escalator and One Pence Reduction in the 2013 budget was greatly received and helped boost confidence and employment in the hospitality industry, it cannot stop there. We are calling for the government to freeze beer duty in the upcoming budget; it is essential for the future of our industry.”
After years of duty increases the UK pays the second largest amount of beer duty in Europe: a startling third of the cost of a pint of beer goes on duty. In 2012 beer drinkers in the UK paid 43% of all EU beer duty, yet we are still seeing record numbers of pub closures each week. British beer sales currently support almost one million jobs and contribute more than £22 billion a year in taxes. The five pubs involved, Bibendum, the Dolphin, Dew Drop Inn, Maxims, and the Eagle, between them employ sixty-five people and contribute to the local economy, as well as support local commerce and charities. A freeze in beer duty this year would secure an additional 2,400 jobs in the industry nationally.
The great British pub is at the heart of a community; they bring people together, provide a safe environment for supervised drinking and play a unique role in our social lives and national identity. The Publicans of South Street, Eastbourne, believe that keeping down the cost of beer and making it affordable is the best way for the Government to support our pubs.


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U.S. Role in Cuban Ag in Flux Amid Trump Presidency
In a few short weeks, Fidel Castro’s death and the ascension of Donald Trump to the U.S. presidency brought the relationship between the U.S. and Cuba back into the spotlight, throwing a curve ball to U.S. businesses seeking to gain a foothold in Cuba’s agriculture production.
With a single tweet made on Nov. 28, a couple of weeks after winning the U.S. election and a few days after Castro’s death, President Elect Trump threatened to undo the progress made by President Obama and Cuban president Raul Castro toward easing trade relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
“If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal,” says Trump on Twitter.
Cuba may be known for its sugarcane, cigars, and baseball talent, but the country’s small farmers have been suppressed amid antiquated equipment and a heavy dependency on agriculture imports. U.S. businesses want to help bolster agricultural production there.
Meanwhile, as an extension of President Obama’s historic visit to Cuba earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a partnership designed to “foster collaboration between U.S. and Cuban agriculture sectors,” according to the USDA. While the longstanding U.S. trade embargo against Cuba remains intact with the exception of limited U.S. agriculture commodity exports to the country, U.S. businesses had reason to be hopeful.
“President Obama opened up a dialogue and good communication, so we were able to understand the needs of the Cuban farmer,” Horace Clemmons, co-founder of Cleber, a tractor manufacturer, tells GAI News. “They have a need for equipment. But early on we, like most other businesses, realized that nothing will happen until the embargo is lifted.”
Meanwhile, Duluth, Georgia-based tractor maker AGCO Corp has reportedly been lobbying for open trade with Cuba. AGCO’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Americas, Bob Crain, says the company has no presence in Cuba today although its Massey Ferguson and Valtra brands were once sold in the country. “We believe many of these legacy machines are still at work today,” he tells GAI News.
AGCO representatives have visited Cuba in the past as part trade missions from the USA and Crain says the company will continue to participate, as appropriate, in the future. “AGCO views Fidel Castro’s death and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. President as factors to be considered, as would any U.S.-based global business, but causes no uncertainty and will not alter our strategies,” says Crain.
Crain explains that it is difficult to assess the true demand in Cuba for agricultural machinery given that the country does not represent a free market economy that’s driven by supply and demand factors.
“However, Cuba has been a major producer of sugar cane and it is still significant today. This sector is machinery intensive, therefore one can anticipate a robust and growing demand for agricultural machinery if Cuba intends to maintain or grow sugar cane production,” he says.
Crain goes on to say: “Beyond sugar cane, agricultural production in Cuba has become quite diversified as the Cuban government has sought increased food autonomy. Characteristically, this diversified farming comprises of small farms and is not machinery intensive but there is a potential to supply modern agricultural machinery to increase efficiency and productivity. Overall the demand for agricultural machinery in Cuba could be large if the country desires to increase and modernize agricultural production.”
That is what companies like Paint Rock, Alabama-based Cleber are banking on. Cleber seeks to introduce affordable equipment to the world’s small farmers, including those in Cuba, some of whom still rely on manual labor or livestock to farm.
“If you look at small farmers on a global basis, nobody makes a tractor small farmers can afford. Everyone has gone to sophisticated equipment and there’s nothing out there for the small farmer. We copied the farm tractor used when people were farming 40 to 80 acres, but the tractors are state of the art from a technology perspective,” says Clemmons of the company’s tractor dubbed Oggun (a religious term referring to the god of metals), which sells for $10,000.
Cleber’s business model is one that takes an open architecture approach to tractor design, or an open source manufacturing model that uses off-the-shelf parts that originate from various suppliers.
Clemmons and co-founder Saul Berenthal have been in ongoing talks with Cuban officials including the Ministry of Agriculture to build a manufacturing facility for the tractors in Havana. Those talks reached an impasse, however, when the sophistication of the facility didn’t meet Cuban officials’ standards.
“While our tractor is state of the art and ahead of almost anything being manufactured, our manufacturing facility is rather mundane,” says Clemmons, adding that the company is working on that.
As for any uncertainty that has risen with the U.S. presidential election, he is quick to point out that the business lessons learned by the Cuban farming industry are already being applied to other regions.
“The good thing about this is in working to try to understand the problems of Cuba, we created a global business model. We’re busy trying to get in a position to produce products for other countries. We have distributors in Australia, Ethiopia, Peru, and we’re talking to five or six more countries. These are exciting times,” says Clemmons.
Meanwhile, until the U.S. embargo against Cuba is lifted, Clemmons says there will not be any meaningful discussions. “Those conversations will start once we have a relationship with the Cuban people,” he says.


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October 2018 Enjoy—Happy 12th Birthday Enjoy!
● By Enjoy Magazine
As leaves turn from green into vibrant shades of red, orange and yellow, we are celebrating Enjoy Magazine’s 12th birthday – and we’re ready to live it up!
This month, we’re also honoring some of the remarkable women in the North State. We’re proud of our female community leaders who are building a vision for the North State’s future, including Redding Rancheria CEO Tracy Edwards, who returned to the area after college to give back to the community that invested in her.
We’re thinking pink this month, and several North State businesswomen are helping women with cancer feel beautiful in the midst of their battle. Heidi Prado has turned the daunting process of wig shopping into an empowering, even fun adventure at Bella La Vie. Then there’s Shanna McCracken, whose Beyond Beauty Esthetics and More provides a welcoming, safe place for women battling cancer to receive customized beauty services.
They’re just a few of the local women making their mark in the business world. Entrepreneur Judy Crawford creates imaginative winter headwear through her company, Tsasdi. And the “Ladies of the 600 Block” in Red Bluff are showing how teamwork makes many dreams work – meet them at the annual Sip and Shop fashion show extravaganza.
On the artistic side, Erin Dertner shows us how to enliven our creative souls through art, while Nicki Carlisle is building the next generation of fiddlers. And after doubling the size of her family by adopting four children from Ethiopia, Natalie Gwyn decided to share her story with the world by writing “Okayest Mom” – a Today Show favorite.
In honor of our 12th anniversary, we’d like to once again thank our readers, advertisers and contributors for their unwavering support to this venture. It is our privilege to tell your stories, and we look forward to sharing everything that’s Enjoy-able about the North State for many years to come.
-The Enjoy Team


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Wednesday June 21, 2017 4:05AM ET
La-Z-Boy Incorporated reported its operating results for the fiscal 2017 full year and fourth quarter ended April 29, 2017.
Tuesday June 20, 2017 7:25AM ET
Lennar reported a profit for second quarter that declined compared to the same period last year.
Friday June 16, 2017 9:13AM ET
Tesco reported growth in sales in the first quarter of its financial year, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of growth.
Friday June 16, 2017 5:43AM ET
Yingli Green Energy Holding Company announced its unaudited consolidated financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2017.
Friday June 16, 2017 4:13AM ET
ReneSola announced its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2017.
Friday June 16, 2017 3:27AM ET
The Kroger Co. reported net earnings of $303 million, or $0.32 per diluted share, and identical supermarket sales growth, without fuel, of -0.2% in the first quarter of 2017.
Thursday June 15, 2017 7:33AM ET
Jabil Circuit announced a profit for its third quarter that rose from last year.


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Germany to Boost Electric-Car Incentives in Push to Lift Demand
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and Germany’s carmakers agreed to increase cash incentives for electric cars to as much as 6,000 euros ($6,676) per vehicle in an effort to lift demand. “The switch to e-mobility has never been so attractive,” Helge Braun, Merkel’s chief of staff, wrote in a tweet after Monday evening’s meeting in Berlin between the Chancellery and officials from automakers, parts suppliers and labor unions.Read more: Merkel Cheers VW’s Electric Push Amid Growing Climate CritiqueThe current incentive program will be expanded and extended. Under the plan, the auto industry will cover half the cost.
Dean Foods, America’s biggest milk processor, has filed for bankruptcy amid a decades-long drop -off in U.S. milk consumption blamed on changing trends and a growing variety of alternatives. The Dallas company said it may sell itself to the Dairy Farmers of America, a marketing cooperative owned by
Milk consumption per capita has dropped 40 percent since 1975 and another blow to Dean Foods came when Walmart opened its own milk processing plant in Allen Dean Foods, America’s biggest milk processor, filed for bankruptcy Tuesday amid a steep, decades-long drop -off in U.S. milk
Video by Yahoo Finance
Got milk? Increasingly, Americans don't, and that led the nation's biggest milk producer to file for bankruptcy Tuesday.
Dean Foods blamed a decadeslong drop in milk consumption that has seen people turn to alternatives like soda, juice and almond milk.
The Dallas company said it may sell itself to the Dairy Farmers of America, a marketing cooperative owned by thousands of farmers.
"Despite our best efforts to make our business more agile and cost-efficient, we continue to be impacted by a challenging operating environment marked by continuing declines in consumer milk consumption," CEO Eric Berigause said in a statement.
Judge in Purdue Pharma bankruptcy case extends lawsuit protection to Sacklers
The judge, Robert Drain, set aside concerns from officials representing about two dozen states and municipalities. They objected to the legal protection being extended to the Sacklers, who have not filed for personal bankruptcy. But some reached a deal with Purdue Pharma on Wednesday agreeing to voluntarily comply with the temporary injunction. The agreement allows those states to change their minds later and fight the injunction.
Dean Foods, America's biggest milk processor, has filed for bankruptcy amid a steep, decades-long drop -off in U.S. milk consumption blamed on soda The company said it will continue operating normally while it puts its finances in order under Chapter 11 bankruptcy . It has lined up about 0
FX Empire. No . 1 milk company declares bankruptcy amid drop in demand . Associated Press. Trump’s 'phase one' trade deal with China is a phantom.
Since 1975, the amount of liquid milk consumed per capita in the U.S. has tumbled more than 40%. Americans drank around 24 gallons a year in 1996, according to government data. That dropped to 17 gallons in 2018.
An increasing variety of beverages, including teas and sodas, has hurt milk consumption. So have protein bars, yogurts and other on-the-go breakfasts, which take the place of a morning bowl of cereal.
More recently, health and animal-welfare concerns have also contributed, as more shoppers seek out non-dairy alternatives.
China Embraces Bankruptcy, U.S.-Style, to Cushion a Slowing Economy
China, after years of pumping out financial support to keep companies afloat and workers happy, has embarked on a debt reckoning—rapidly building a bankruptcy system to take on a significant pickup in corporate defaults. The country now has more than 90 U.S.-style specialized bankruptcy courts to help sort through a morass of corporate debt that, until recently, would have been swallowed by state banks and other creditors.It is a sign that Beijing is worried about the number of failing companies and trying to find a fix.
Dean Foods, America’s biggest milk processor, filed for bankruptcy Tuesday amid a decades-long drop -off in U.S. milk consumption blamed on changing trends and a growing variety of alternatives. The Dallas company said it may sell itself to the Dairy Farmers of America, a marketing
Disney+ launched Tuesday but was greeted with technological difficulties. Disney tweeted that "consumer demand for Disney+ has exceeded our high expectations." What to Read Next. No . 1 milk company declares bankruptcy amid drop in demand .
Oat milk, for example, saw U.S. sales rise 636% to more than $52 million over the past year, according to Nielsen data. Sales of cow's milk dropped 2.4% in that same time frame.
Not all dairy products have been affected. U.S. butter and cheese consumption is up since 1996, for example.
"We're eating our dairy, not drinking it," said Mark Stephenson, director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The downturn has had an outsize effect on Dean Foods, which derived 67% of its sales from fluid milk last year, according to its annual report. The company has lost money in eight of its last 10 quarters and posted declining sales in seven of the last eight.
Dean employs 16,000 people and operates 60 processing facilities across the country. On any given day, it is running 8,000 refrigerated delivery trucks on U.S. roads.
It supplies milk for its own brands, like Dairy Pure, Meadow Gold and TruMoo, as well as store brands. One big blow came last year, when Walmart opened its own milk processing plant in Indiana.
PG&E is offering $13.5 billion in compensation to wildfire victims
Bankrupt utility giant PG&E Corp. is offering $13.5 billion in compensation to the victims of wildfires sparked by its power lines as part of a restructuring plan, according to people with knowledge of the situation. In doing so, the San Francisco-based power company is trying to provide the same amount that a group of its creditors -- led by Pacific Investment Management Co. and Elliott Management Corp. -- has agreed to pay victims in a rival reorganization proposal, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are private.
The launch of IFAD will complement the company ’s Energy business, which is already performing strongly. Third-quarter revenues from the No . 1 milk company declares bankruptcy amid drop in demand . Associated Press. Trump has made this false claim about China and tariffs at least 100 times.
What to Read Next. No . 1 milk company declares bankruptcy amid drop in demand . President Trump: ‘We’ve launched an economic boom’ amid Federal Reserve interest cuts. Yahoo Finance Video.
Dean said it will continue operating normally while it puts its finances in order under Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It has lined up about $850 million in financing from lenders.
The bankruptcy filing comes at a difficult time for dairy farmers, who were already struggling with low prices because of oversupply.
Linda Ceylor and her husband, Gerald, operate an organic farm near Catawba, Wisconsin, where they milk fewer than 50 cows and raise heifers.
Ceylor said Dean Foods' woes mirror what smaller producers are facing. She said the most hurtful part is watching young people go out of business, including three neighbors in their 30s.
"All they ever wanted to do is milk cows, and all three of them said they can't do it anymore," Ceylor said. "That's like watching your grandchildren go through a massive problem you can't do anything about. There's really no other choice for them to make."
Darin Von Ruden, president of the Wisconsin Farmers Union, said he is concerned about Dean Foods selling itself to Dairy Farmers of America.
"That's two of the five biggest companies in the country, and when you start looking at that kind of consolidation, is that good for producers? The answer is probably no," said Von Ruden, who is selling his dairy operation to his son.
Dean is already a product of consolidation. It was bought by Suiza Foods Corp. in 2001. The new, larger company assumed the Dean name and bought several other milk producers.
Stephenson said that left Dean with a large number of aging facilities. At the same time, it sold off some non-dairy brands, like TofuTown, becoming less diversified.
Stephenson said Dean was also slow to innovate. He cited growing sales of Fairlife milk, a Coca-Cola Co. brand that is lower in lactose and higher in protein.
Associated Press writer Dave Kolpack in Fargo, N.D., contributed.
PG&E Struggles to Find a Way Out of Bankruptcy .
After an autumn marked by mass blackouts and wildfires, Pacific Gas & Electric is racing to craft a plan to escape bankruptcy. That plan needs to satisfy fire victims and state officials who are threatening to take over PG&E, California’s largest utility, unless executives improve its safety record. If PG&E doesn’t reach an agreement with victims and other creditors by early next year, the utility might not be able to participate in a new state wildfire fund. A federal bankruptcy judge could also strip control from its management and board, or allow it to be broken up, with the pieces sold to the highest bidder.


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I’m sure you’re familiar with the “retail apocalypse.”
Brick-and-mortar retailers are dying off as people buy more stuff online, or so the story goes.
This trend has taken out household names like Circuit City, Blockbuster Video, and Payless ShoeSource. Even luxury retailer Barneys filed for bankruptcy this year.
All told, about 9,000 brick-and-mortar stores closed in 2019. Meanwhile, e-commerce sales are growing around 5% per year.
Despite the headline-grabbing bankruptcies, about 90% of US retail sales still happen in person.
In fact, brick-and-mortar retail sales have grown 2.4% per year since 2009. And they’re poised to keep growing around 2% annually through 2024.
Now, two percent represents steady growth. But select corners of brick-and-mortar retail are absolutely thriving…
We Still Buy Furniture the Old-Fashioned Way
Scroll through a list of retail stores that have closed over the last decade, and you’ll notice one segment that’s largely missing: furniture.
The way we buy couches and cabinets hasn’t changed much. Nearly 85% of Americans still buy their furniture at brick-and-mortar stores.
This isn’t changing anytime soon. In-store furniture sales are expected to grow 5% per year through 2024.
The stability of this retail niche shows up in stock prices.
For example, home furnishing giant Williams-Sonoma, Inc. (WSM), has soared 38% this year, squashing the S&P 500.
Williams-Sonoma owns the popular Pottery Barn and West Elm brands. The company makes it easy for customers to shop both in-store and online. This has helped it thrive in the new retail landscape.
Williams-Sonoma also boasts a solid 2.9% dividend yield.
Nike’s Enjoyed a Solid Year
Many apparel companies are taking a similar hybrid approach.
Take Nike, Inc. (NKE), for instance. The athletic apparel giant has over 1,100 retail stores and a convenient online platform. Plus, the overwhelming majority of sporting goods companies sell Nike products in their brick-and-mortar stores.
This is part of the reason Nike’s stock has beaten the S&P 500 over the last year:
Nike also has a safe 1.1% dividend yield.
The Best Way to Invest in Retail
Buying shares of high-performing retailers like Williams-Sonoma and Nike would give you a piece of the action. But there’s an even better way for income investors to profit from the stable US retail market: retail real estate investment trusts (REITs).
We’ve talked about REITs before. They’re special business entities that own different kinds of properties—trailer parks, hospitals, factories, commercial real estate, and everything in between.
Retail REITs own the buildings where traditional retailers operate. This gives them exposure to a range of different stores, which diversifies your investment.
All REITs are required to pay out 90% of their income as dividends. So retail REITs often pay huge dividends—sometimes 3 or 4 times higher than their tenants.
Retail REIT dividends even outshine other types of REITs:
That’s why I developed a proprietary system called the Dividend Sustainability Index (DSI) to measure dividend safety. In a nutshell, the DSI looks at three key metrics: payout ratio, debt-to-equity ratio, and free cash flow.
These three retail REITs passed the DSI with flying colors…
Three Retail REITs with Big, Safe Dividends
Simon Property Group (SPG) sits at the top of my list.
When you look at Simon’s financials, there’s no sign of a retail apocalypse. Since 2009, the company’s operating income (the equivalent of profits for REITs) has grown an average of 9% annually.
At the same time, Simon has increased its dividend 14% per year over the last decade. Its dividend yield is now 5.7%. So it’s a great addition to any income investor’s portfolio.
Next up is grocery REIT Weingarten Realty Investors (WRI). The company leases stores to major grocers like Whole Foods, Publix, and BevMo!
We’ve talked about the rise of e-commerce in groceries before. Online sales are expected to make up 5% of grocery sales by 2024. But people will keep buying most of their groceries in-store for the foreseeable future.
Overall, grocery sales are expected to grow 3.1% per year through 2023. This bodes well for Weingarten. Plus, the company sports a juicy 5.1% dividend yield.
Our final retail REIT is SITE Centers Corp. (SITC). The company owns and operates 33 shopping centers throughout the US.
SITC pays a reliable 5.7% dividend yield. It also has a low payout ratio of 48% and a very healthy debt-to-equity ratio of 47%. So it should continue to meet its sizable dividend payments for the foreseeable future.
All three of these REITs should continue to profit from the stable US retail market. And their robust dividends make them attractive to income investors like us.


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KARMIEL, Israel, March 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --
Opgal Optronic Industries announced today that it will host a training seminar at its headquarters in Karmiel, Israel on March 20, 2012. The Opgal Product Master Training Conference will bring together participants from more than 20 countries to learn directly from Opgal's team of industry experts and product specialists.
In light of the growing demand for enhanced thermal imaging products in the security market, Opgal's global partners will be offered unparalleled access to the very latest products and in-depth analysis of the latest market trends. Participants will benefit from hands-on experience and practical guidance in the use of Opgal's extensive line of security products and will have the opportunity to familiarize themselves with best practices for perimeter security and other civilian applications. The conference will feature panel discussions, interactive workshops and networking opportunities with industry experts.
Opgal's innovative solutions are built on three decades of experience and are renowned for their unique functionality and image quality. Opgal was recently named by IMS Research as one of the top ten perimeter security equipment providers in EMEA and APAC, and as the second largest global provider of thermal imaging cameras to the perimeter security market. The study also found Opgal to be one of only two thermal imaging equipment providers to increase market share in 2011.
Opgal delivers advanced vision and surveillance solutions enabling accurate insight into suspicious situations in adverse and harsh visibility conditions. Using state-of-the-art thermal and active-imaging technologies, Opgal leverages advanced electro-optics and image processing expertise to create high- performance, versatile visualization hardware and software products for the security and paramilitary markets. Founded 30 years ago, Opgal is a major supplier to some of the leading contractors and has hundreds of customers in over 50 countries. Opgal is co-owned by Elbit Systems and Rafael. http://www.opgal.com
For more information please contact:
Ms. Hadas Weizman
SOURCE Opgal Optronic Industries


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|Filed Under:||Local Interest / China|
|Posts on Regator:||288|
|Posts / Week:||1|
|Archived Since:||March 8, 2011|
Entrepreneurship is hot in one corner of East Asia.
The Chinese economy is in decline and the International Monetary Fund is in denial.
Beijing is reimposing controls at a time of unprecedented capital flight.
Washington honors Chinese President Xi Jinping, but Silicon Valley welcomes Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Beijing’s announcement of its new car-hailing app is an escalation of the war on Uber and Didi Kuaidi.
Chinese consumer spending is not robust.
Beijing has just announced that stocks have bottomed out.
It’s a good time to be a Chinese “bad bank.”
Beijing’s devaluation of the renminbi may have been a defensive maneuver to prevent an increase in U.S. interest rates.
Chinese factories are fleeing to what soon will be the world’s most populous country.
Beijing’s proposed regulations can eliminate the country’s last-mover advantage.
How could the Chinese slowdown catch so many companies off guard?
The outlook for automakers in the Chinese market for the rest of 2015 is grim.
Beijing’s announcement of its holdings of the precious metal leaves just about everyone perplexed.
The tech giant has done some critical things well, but it must make innovation more than just a slogan.
Beijing is now absolutely determined to control market direction.
Beijing is trying to dictate valuation levels to a volatile market.
Home prices in the southern Chinese city “sizzle” while its stock market crashes.
The Chinese government will do anything to rescue the stock market—until it cannot.
Chinese malls, rocked by closing luxury stores, may be saved by the fast fashion wave.


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About another million tons of these useless blocks will be shipped out to households and offices next year, where an increasing number will make a U Turn at the front porch and head to the landfill without ever being opened. William Rathke, an anthropologist who studies garbage, says you can "dig a trench through a landfill and you will see layers of phone books like geographical strata or layers of cake." Rathke, who despite digging through trash for a living has his Ph.D. from Harvard, claims phone books account for about 10-30% of the trash at your local dump.
In an era when you can fit many gigabytes onto a device small enough to be swallowed by a cat and even your local bait shop has a website, phone companies still want us to find phone numbers the same way we did 100 years ago: by dragging out a bulky, ten-pound list printed on dead trees.
After ten years we're finally seeing dropping DVD sales. Considering movies can already be downloaded onto set-top boxes on a pay-per-view basis, and can be downloaded over the internet on a pay-nothing-per-view basis, it's a wonder it took this long. Any economists reading may recognize that combination of risk factors and symptoms the same way doctors recognize coughing, shortness of breath and a constellation of funny-shapes on a chest X-ray.
Companies like Sony would like to think the dip is due to people getting all excited about Bluray, but while Bluray sales have inched along, movie downloads have doubled.
Box sets of TV shows have inexplicably injected huge profits into DVD over the last few years. Even though the shows are free to watch in rerun form and, if you're not happy with that, rips are available four nanoseconds before a show finishes airing. But loyal fans hold out for the official box set. If you're new to this human thing called "capitalism", corporations interpret "loyalty" the way a prisoner might interpret "dropping the soap".


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23 Apr Mother’s Day
There is no doubt Mother’s Day holds a very special place in all of our hearts. Whether you’re a new mum, a mum-to-be, a grandmother, or if you’re mum is no longer with you, the day provides us with a unique opportunity to be especially grateful for everything a mother represents.
Falling on May 10 this year, Mother’s day will undoubtedly look a little different as the coronavirus pandemic leaves us separated physically from many of our loved ones. But while strict social distancing rules may mean many of us mightn’t be able to see our mums in person for the day, it’s a reality that is undoubtedly for the best as we continue to fight the spread of the virus.
But just because you might not be able to see your mum in person that doesn’t mean you can’t spoil her and make her feel loved on the special day. In fact, there are plenty of little gestures you can do that will go a long way – and not just for mum.
This could include beautiful flowers, which are a timeless classic or why not a potted plant if you prefer something with more longevity. Another great present idea for mum is a voucher to her favourite beauty service, whether that be the hairdresser, nail salon or even masseuse! And if you’re really struggling for ideas you can never go wrong with chocolate.
Many small local businesses are struggling in the wake of the pandemic, as they’ve been forced to close bricks and mortar stores and rely solely on online sales. With this in mind, now has never been a better time to purchase your gift or service from one of the many small, local businesses throughout our region. This year, it won’t just show mum how much you care, but it will also go a long way in helping Gladstone businesses recover from this financially devastating time.


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Kim Kardashian looked impeccably put together when she headed to a SoulCycle center in LA on Monday for a workout session with her sisters Khloé Kardashian and Kendall Jenner. The trio were filming scenes for their reality show, Keeping Up With the Kardashians, which recently had its midseason finale, centering on Khloé's decision to file for divorce from her troubled husband, Lamar Odom. Kim and Khloé likely had a bit of catching up to do with Kendall, who recently returned from a successful trip around the globe to take part in various fashion weeks in New York, London, and Paris. While Kendall is still living in the shadow of her famous half-sisters, she is quickly becoming something of a darling in the fashion world, even snagging a front-row seat next to Anna Wintour at a fashion show in London. (Kim has famously had an icy relationship with Anna and Vogue, despite being engaged to Anna's friend Kanye West.)
Kim has been upping her gym time over the past few weeks as she prepares for her May 24 wedding to Kanye. There's no news if the E! cameras will be there to document the couple's big day, but the nuptials will take place in Paris, and the pair's daughter, North West, will reportedly play a role.


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Tell Netflix to remove Cuties for sexualizing children
Netflix has gone too far.
Having already released movies within the last year that glorified blasphemy (The First Temptation of Christ) and sexual violence (365 Days), Netflix has now reached a new low: sexualizing 11-year-old children. Netflix has announced that on September 9th, they will be releasing the French movie Cuties. The synopsis Netflix originally made for it (before they changed it due to backlash) was "Amy, 11, becomes fascinated with a twerking dance crew. Hoping to join them, she starts to explore her femininity, defying her family’s traditions."
It is clear from all the marketing and advertisements for Cuties that it is a movie that revolves around the sexualization of children. Even if Cuties ends up having enough self-awareness to be a critique of how children are often sexualized in our culture, it won’t change the fact that the movie will be sexualizing children to promote this message.
Additionally, because of the massive reach Netflix has, it is unavoidable that by releasing Cuties on Netflix it will be accessible to pedophiles.
The release of Cuties to Netflix also contributes to the normalization of child sexualization in the media. With the reach Netflix has, they have a social responsibility to ensure that the material they distribute does not contain themes that are grossly detrimental to the well-being of society. Signing this petition will help urge Netflix to stop neglecting that responsibility.
Sign the petition to tell Netflix CEO Reed Hastings to put a stop to their plans to release Cuties on Netflix.
Netflix accused of sexualizing children with promotion of upcoming film 'Cuties' (CTV News) https://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/netflix-accused-of-sexualizing-children-with-promotion-of-upcoming-film-cuties-1.5072049


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Pennsylvania Ford Hybrid Drivers Sue Over "False" 47 MPG Claims
April 26, 2013 12:04 PM
comment(s) - last by
The lawsuit seeks at least $5 million in damages
Customers who've purchased certain new Ford hybrid vehicles in Pennsylvania are suing the automaker, saying that its
fuel-efficiency claims are false
Pennsylvania owners of Ford's 2013 Fusion Hybrid and C-Max Hybrid cars are suing the Detroit auto company because their vehicles are falling far below the advertised 47 mpg. In fact, they've fallen as short as 17 to 21 percent below that figure.
The lawsuit, which was filed by Pennsylvania owners of the two vehicles in Philadelphia federal court, seeks damages of at least $5 million and says Ford has violated the state’s unfair-trade practices and consumer protection laws.
“Plaintiffs are some of the tens of thousands of consumers who purchased a Fusion Hybrid or C-Max Hybrid, only to be stuck with under-performing, less valuable vehicles that inflict higher fuel costs on their owners,” according to the complaint.
Back in December 2012,
pointed out the inaccuracies of both
the 2013 Fusion Hybrid and C-Max Hybrid cars
. According to its testing, the C-Max Hybrid received 35/38/37 mpg for city/highway/combined and the Fusion Hybrid had 35/41/39 mpg.
At that time, Ford responded to
claims saying that mileage varies among hybrids.
"Early C-Max Hybrid and Fusion Hybrid customers praise the vehicles and report a range of fuel economy figures, including some reports above 47 mpg," said Ford spokesman Wes Sherwood. "This reinforces the fact that driving styles, driving conditions and other factors can cause mileage to vary."
While all vehicles must undergo the EPA test for fuel efficiency, the test isn't actually administered by the government agency. Instead, automakers perform the test and the EPA reviews it. In many cases, factors like temperature and speed result in gas mileage being lower than the EPA sticker.
But after Ford was called out for coming up with inaccurate fuel ratings for its two hybrids, the EPA stepped in to do a test of its own.
another round of testing
of the C-Max Hybrid in March, Wayne Gerdes found that it only achieved 35.537 miles per gallon over 360 highway miles. But in the city, he was able to achieve 52 miles per gallon over 22.8 miles of driving, which is better than the EPA promises.
This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
RE: Just can't drive responsibly
4/26/2013 2:08:24 PM
I'm sure the hypermilers can easily pass 50 mpg with that car. They are nuts after all.
RE: Just can't drive responsibly
4/26/2013 4:47:53 PM
Easy for who? Certainly not easy for anyone that has to deal with them on the road.
"There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere." -- Isaac Asimov
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