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Post-Dispatch parent Lee dramatically cuts losses
Lee Enterprises, the publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, reported a net loss of $20.9 million for fiscal 2012. That compares with a net loss of $146.7 million for fiscal 2011, which was mostly due to reorganization and debt financing costs.
For the full year ended Sept. 30, Lee Enterprises reported operating revenue of $710.5 million, down 2 percent from 2011. Combined print and digital advertising revenue decreased 4 percent to $495.9 million, with retail advertising down 3 percent, classified down 6 percent and national down 8 percent. Digital advertising revenue on a stand-alone basis increased 10 percent to $63.4 million, the company said, whereas print advertising revenue on a stand-alone basis decreased 6 percent.
“Lee continues very much on course as we drive strong digital growth, control costs, transform our business and rapidly pay down debt,” Mary Junck, chairman and CEO, said in a statement.
Total average circulation of Lee’s 51 daily newspapers was 1.2 million daily and 1.4 million Sunday for the six month period ended September 2012, representing declines of 6 percent daily and 7 percent Sunday compared with the previous year.
Lee Enterprises reported a net loss of $7.6 million for its fiscal fourth quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with a net loss of $8.8 million in the quarter ended Sept. 25 last year. The company reported $180.3 million in operating revenue in the fourth quarter, up 3 percent from the prior-year quarter.
In September, Lee Enterprises sold its North County Times in San Diego to Manchester Freedom for $11.95 million. The North County Times had $27.6 million in revenue for the year ended Aug. 26, and it has an average daily circulation of 74,848.
Davenport, Iowa-based Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE) owns 48 daily newspapers and has a joint interest in four others. It also owns digital products and nearly 300 specialty publications in 23 states.
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BAMIDELE OGUNWUSI, JUSTUS ADEJUMOH AND ISAAC ASABOR
LAGOS – 9PSB (Payment Service Bank), has commenced operations in fostering financial inclusion drive in the Nigerian ecosystem.
The financial system payment will be an enabler to achieving unparalleled benefit in everyday transactions.
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), recently granted final approval to Nigeria’s lifestyle and first payment service bank to address challenges such as regular long queues in the banking halls, consistent network failure, stringent documentations to assess credit facilities, frequent transaction/dispensing error, delay in transaction completion and process among others.
Branka Mracajac, Chief Executive Officer, 9PSB, speaking at the launch which held in Lagos yesterday at Lagos Continental Hotel, said the service bank will be revolutionary in the financial ecosystem.
According to her, “The launch of 9PSB is quite timely, especially at the time when we just came of COVID-19 pandemic which has effected some levels of restrictions and brought about new normal. We strongly believe that this initiative will create financial literacy among our people- especially the youths and women across the country, and will transform financial services in Nigeria.
“With this payment service, people can open accounts and do all forms of services from the comfort of their homes on their mobile devices. It will definitely address the issue of financial inclusion which is ongoing and fasttrack payment services for the unbanked, underbanked and even those who who are already banking.”
Mracajac explained that the payment service is opened to all Nigerians, no matter the network service the use.

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Brown Venture Group, a venture capital firm focused exclusively on Black, Latinx and Indigenous emerging tech startups, will receive an investment of up to $10 million from Best Buy. The fund’s goal is to help break down systemic barriers for BIPOC entrepreneurs, including lack of access to capital. Black and Latinx founders represented only 2.6% of funding in 2020.
Best Buy’s support is part of its June 2020 pledge to “do better” in terms of inclusivity and diversity. Actions have included the retailer providing $44 million to expand college prep and career activities for BIPOC students and a commitment to spend at least $1.2 billion with BIPOC and diverse businesses through 2025, as well as increasing diversity within its own workforce.
Brown Venture Group, founded in 2018 with the goal of raising $50 million to invest in entrepreneurs of color, shares a home town of Minneapolis with Best Buy. In addition to the retailer’s monetary investment, the two companies plan to collaborate on creating a stronger community of diverse suppliers as well as launching an entrepreneurial partnership program at Best Buy Teen Tech Centers.
“The partnership with Best Buy represents an important shift in our business community, from doing things for communities of Color to investing and executing with communities of Color in longer-term collaborative business relationships,” said Brown Venture Group Co-founder and Managing Partner Dr. Paul Campbell in a statement.
“Through partnerships like this, we believe we can begin to do this by helping to build a stronger, more vibrant community of diverse innovators in the tech industry, some of whom we hope will become partners of Best Buy in the future,” said Best Buy CEO Corie Barry in a statement.


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EA Games have just announced that they plan to officially unveil what they call the ‘next generation’ of gaming on Monday, June 10 at 1:00 p.m PT (June 11th at 6:oo am AEST) at the E3 expo. The conference will show off EA titles such as UFC, FIFA 14, Madden NFL 25, NBA LIVE, Need for Speed Rivals, Battlefield 4 as well as a number of exciting surprises.
You can watch the conference at a number of locations including live on Spike TV, on EA’s official website and right here on Capsule Computers embedded below this article.
This is very exciting news for gamers as E3 2013 seems to be about to kick off an EA will surely have a number of exciting games to show off to their fans watching. Be sure to check out the conference on the day for all your updates on EA’s ‘next generation’ of gaming.


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updated 09:40 pm EST, Thu February 12, 2009
Microsoft retail stores
Microsoft on Thursday announced the appointment of David Porter as vice president of Retail Stores, confirming earlier reports that the company is planning a foray into the realm of brick-and-mortar establishments. Porter's first task will be to determine the timing, locations and specific details of the stores. He brings experience from 25 years at Walmart where he served as the vice president and general merchandise manager of Entertainment.
The move will bring Microsoft into a new playing field to compete against Apple, although the Mac-maker finished 2008 with 251 retail locations and plans to keep expanding through 2009. Apple Stores have become a strong point of the company, accounting for 46.7 million visitors last quarter and bringing in $1.74 in revenue, averaging $7 million for each store.
Microsoft stores would provide a place to market products directly to consumers, such as the upcoming launch of Windows 7 and the company's Zune and Xbox devices. "This is an exciting time with our strong lineup of upcoming product releases including Windows 7 and new releases of Windows Live and Windows Mobile," Porter said.
Opening retail stores goes against the company's previous strategy that focused on marketing system partners and third-party stores. Porter suggests that the venture could prove beneficial for both sides. "I am excited about helping consumers make more informed decisions about their PC and software purchases, and we'll share learnings from our stores with our existing retail and OEM partners that are critical to our success," he said.
Microsoft has not yet announced any plans for particular locations, or if the stores will directly sell computers or provide a place for customers to demo the software.


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SURFSIDE BEACH — The ice cream shop at the Surfside Beach pier isn’t staying closed for long.
Seadogs Ice Cream closed Aug. 23 just before the operators’ lease ran out after a four-year run. But another ice cream shop, dubbed Licks Ice Cream, aims to open Saturday in the same spot.
The ice cream shop has been a longtime tradition on the pier, dating to Frankie’s prior to Seadogs.
Licks will be operated by Curt Kremer, who owns Pier Outfitters on the pier and next to the ice cream shop.
The shop, which will open at 6 p.m. daily, will serve ice cream for now, then likely add hot dogs and chips for next season, Kremer said.
Contact DAWN BRYANT at 626-0296 or at email@example.com or follow her at Twitter.com/TSN_dawnbryant.


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Local Corporation (NASDAQ:LOCM) posted a stellar quarter that beat estimates, with revenues mounting across the board. Traffic of over 100 million unique visitors per month was a company record. Mobile traffic was up almost 275% over last year. Money made from traffic was impressive, margins were good, and costs were controlled. Cash was used carefully and will get a healthy boost from Rovion's sale to Gannett Co. (NYSE:GCI) announced last month.
The fundamentals are stronger than ever. A 30% gain in revenues this year will make Local a $100 million company, about twice the size of its market cap, keeping pace with a six-year record of 40% compound annual revenue growth.
Local dominates the local search and advertising market. As an indication of how important and valuable Local's market position is, one needs to look no further than Google (NASDAQ:GOOG). In the first six months of 2012, Google made more money from ads than print media combined. With $10.9 billion in ad revenue in the first six months of 2012, Google beat all other pint media combined including newspapers and magazines in the U.S., according to Statista.
The $5 billion plus local search market is the biggest and fastest growing segment of the $47 billion online advertising industry, and in a few years digital revenues will account for more than 25% of all US local media advertising. Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO), Google Inc., and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) - will jockey to position themselves in this emerging goldmine.
Everything is going mobile in an industry changing rapidly, and local search is no exception. Since announcing its mobile app a few months ago, Local thinks mobile will be a big portion of its overall traffic in the future and will strategize accordingly. So far, Google leads with the highest rate of local searches on mobile devices with 16%; Yahoo is next with 15% and Bing last with 5%. Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) mobile ads are up to 14% of advertising revenues, and they just started.
With Yelp Inc. (NASDAQ:YELP) going global, we could be in store for the next wave of Internet money-making. Don't forget that time-honored strategy, the roll-up, small M&A deals that make an industry. We could be seeing that now, too. Yahoo Inc. likes acquisitions under $500 million, and only six out of its 97 total deals were higher. Same with Google Inc. Out of 300 acquisitions, only 10 cost north of one half of a billion dollars.
The best news of the quarter for Local came from three deals: A deal with Yahoo, sale of Rovion and a licensing agreement on Krillion to Gannet. Local's month-to-month agreement with Yahoo to distribute paid search results was upgraded into a five year lock-up, a remarkable move that suggests to me that Yahoo wants Local all to itself. I suspect Yahoo sees a big future for its partner and feels more comfortable committing long-term, most likely lured by Local's burgeoning traffic growth, a huge plus for reasons mentioned above.
Rovion, Local's rich media technology company that does not require coding to create and send professional-grade ads, was sold to mammoth Gannet Co. , publisher and owner of USA Today and 800 other print publications, 23 television stations, a myriad of website affiliations including ShopLocal.com and CareerBuilder, and developer of marketing campaigns for Dunkin' Donuts, Ford and Sprint. Gannett wants Rovion's main product for its PointRoll digital marketing subsidiary to step up mobile platform capabilities. The beauty of this deal is that little Rovion becomes part of Gannett Digital, with each Gannett division able to access the Rovion technology, including Local itself, which struck a licensing pact with Gannett at the time of the sale. Not bad when you factor in a 44% return on investment and the elimination of a third of a million of Local's cash burn per quarter.
The Gannett/Local relationship deepened when, at the time of the Rovion transaction, Gannett agreed to license Krillion, Local's product search directory that had already been woven into Rovion's ad platform. A nice fit with Gannett's ShopLocal.com and its multi-channel shopping and advertising services.
We all know the risks of investing in Internet stocks - fierce competition, rapid technology changes, fads - and I believe Local is immune to these for reasons I have already expressed. One short-term glitch investors should know is a slight expected downtick in fourth quarter revenues from one of Local's websites. One of its partners made a policy change that called for less ads on a web page (this happened within the industry, not just with Local) that cut ad revenues, but because Local was quick to put the policy in action, any residual revenue drain was stopped, and the outcome is good because viewers get a better experience from the Local site.
Local then tweaked the placement of ads to optimize monetization by increasing traffic to the ads, a very smart move using the simple formula traffic x monetization = revenues. So, if Local's monetization goes down, they just stop whichever sluggish advertising campaign was causing it. If monetization goes up, the campaigns are boosted, turning a double negative into a double positive.
Local has grown from its big-margin organic revenues and organic traffic, which represents 40% of total traffic. This was just a fraction of the total revenues a couple of years ago. Judging from the quarter, Local's organic traffic is at record levels.
I am thrilled with Local's performance so far this year, proving it can attract and cut a deal with a major media concern and then extend a lucrative contract with a huge online player. Local's recent quarter only goes to show that solid business fundamentals can exist in Internet stocks. I believe Local is extremely undervalued and stand by my $12 target price.
Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it. I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.


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Xpeng delivered 8,620 vehicles in June, up 14.84 percent from May and the fifth straight month of sequential growth. First deliveries of the G6 will begin later this month.
Xpeng (NYSE: XPEV) deliveries continued to improve modestly ahead of the start of deliveries of the new SUV G6.
The electric vehicle (EV) maker delivered 8,620 vehicles in June, up 14.84 percent from May and its fifth straight month of improvements sequentially, despite a 43.64 percent decline from a year ago, data released today showed.
Deliveries of Xpeng's flagship sedan P7 series rose 17 percent in June from the previous month, it said, without disclosing specific figures.
The company delivered 23,205 vehicles in the second quarter, up 27.29 percent from the first quarter but down 32.59 percent from the previous year.
The second-quarter deliveries were above the upper end of Xpeng's previous guidance range of 21,000 to 22,000 vehicles. It guided for second quarter revenue of between RMB 4.5 billion ($620 million) and RMB 4.7 billion.
In the first half of the year, Xpeng delivered 41,435 vehicles, a 39.93 percent decrease from 68,983 vehicles in the same period last year.
As of June 30, Xpeng's cumulative deliveries since inception were 300,145 vehicles, surpassing the 300,000 mark, data monitored by CnEVPost showed.
The company is offering five versions of the G6 with starting prices of RMB 209,900, RMB 229,900, RMB 234,900, RMB 254,900 and RMB 276,900, respectively.
The starting price is RMB 15,100 lower than Xpeng's G6 pre-sale starting price of RMB 225,000 announced on June 9, and RMB 54,000 lower than the Model Y's starting price of RMB 263,900 in China.
Xpeng chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng said at the G6 launch event that the G6 had more than 35,000 pre-sale orders as of June 28 since pre-sale began on June 9.
(Image credit: CnEVPost)
The G6 is expected to become the top-selling smart electric SUV priced at the RMB 250,000 level in China within two months, he said.
In an interview with local media on June 30, Mr. He said the monthly sales target for the G6 is at least 10,000 units.
Initial deliveries of the G6 are set to begin this month, and display vehicles have arrived at showrooms nationwide and are ready for test drives, Xpeng said today.
Xpeng's ADAS feature, XNGP, will be available immediately upon delivery of all G6 Max versions, it said, adding that it plans to roll out its "AI Valet Driver" feature for all XNGP-equipped vehicles beginning in the fourth quarter.
The "AI Valet Driver" mode allows users to customize smart driving routes to their preferences in multiple Chinese cities, making driving in everyday driving scenarios safer and more efficient, the company said.
($1 = RMB 7.2523)


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Elon Musk is constantly in the headlines. It’s not a big surprise since he has become the world’s richest man on the Forbes list, and also is the mind behind Tesla and SpaceX two very important companies in recent times. If that isn’t enough, Elon has just become the biggest stockholder in Twitter and tried to acquire a large portion of the company to have total control over Twitter’s actions and future. However, the company used the old “Poison Pills” tactics to break Elon Musk’s plans. Today, Elon is not in the headlines due to a new plan to devour Twitter, but due to the recent advancements of another of his companies – Tesla – in the Chinese stronghold.
In case you’re unaware, Tesla is establishing its presence in the competitive Chinese market. The company wants to take a good slice of this important market for vehicles, especially smart electric ones. In recent weeks, Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory had to deal with an interruption in its work. Not a big surprise, since China is facing another recent surge in the cases of the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this, Tesla has made great progress in restarting the production lines. In light of what he considers a “great work” Elon Musk expressed his contentment with the Chinese front of Tesla.
Gizchina News of the week
Tesla is doing well in the entire world and is making Elon Musk richer
According to the report, Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory resumed work smoothly on April 19. On that day, around 8000 employees arrived, and the whole vehicle was gradually restored. To those unaware, this is Tesla’s second overseas Gigafactory. The plant mainly produces Tesla Model 3 and Tesla Model Y electric vehicles. Back in 2021, Tesla’s Shanghai Gigafactory managed to deliver a total amount of 484,000 vehicles which was a significant increase. To put things in perspective, it was a 235 percent year-on-year increase for the company accounting for 51.7 percent of Tesla’s total global deliveries.
Back the last Wednesday, Elon Musk, has reached a set of goals and for his good performance at Tesla, he will receive around $23 billion in new compensation. The world’s most valuable carmaker has shared its records for Q1 2022 with a profit. The company managed to overcome the inflation and also the recent closure of the Chinese plant. According to market analysts, Elon Musk intends to sell some of Tesla’s actions to fund his offensive investment on Twitter.


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| Feb 6, 2014
| 6:01 PM
A new rum distillery, which says it is the only one in the state to craft its liquor from raw ingredients, has launched in St. Michaels.
Lyon Distilling Company, co-founded by a 31-year-old former Wall Street currency trader and his photographer...
| Feb 7, 2014
| 6:34 AM
One hundred years ago, on days when the wind was right, the sour smell of mash enveloped Campbeltown. Then this speck of a community tucked into a small harbor near the end of the Kintyre Peninsula on the western side of the country was widely...
| Feb 10, 2014
| 6:19 AM
Dan Meiser and James Wayman introduced themselves to Mystic in September 2011 by way of Oyster Club. Though diners quickly flocked to the unique sea-to-table restaurant for raw Noanks on the half shell and native Stonington fluke, others eventually...
| May 14, 2014
| 9:41 AM
It's starting to seem as if craft beer has been around forever. Of course there's fresh, creative, locally made beer everywhere we go. Of course it comes in styles that both date back generations and barely existed a year ago. Of course there is a Chicago...
| May 20, 2014
| 9:00 PM
In the words of county singer Toby Keith, "I love this bar."
In the past year and a half as the Orlando Sentinel's night-life columnist, I've said those words more times than I can count. Restaurants, parks, housing: All are essential parts of a...
| May 21, 2014
| 2:55 PM
The owner of The Baltimore Sun wants to find partners to develop about 37 acres of unused land next to the newspaper's printing plant in Port Covington.
The plans are part of a broader push by Tribune Company to make more money from its real estate....
| Dec 17, 2013
| 11:51 AM
There is no shortage of gifts for the craft beer drinkers on your list, and all of these ideas are a better option than those “beer of the month”-type subscription services that are almost universally a bad value and a disappointment. You&...
| May 19, 2014
| 8:15 AM
Just because you're on vacation at the shore doesn't mean every drink has to come with a tiny beach umbrella. Pitch the slushy or cosmopolitan, and think more along the lines of craft.
Craft beer, that is.
For a long time, beer drinkers lacked choices...
| May 14, 2014
| 4:02 PM
Whiskey and pork naturally complement each other. If you've ever sipped some smoky, bacon-infused whiskey, you understand. But the team at Templeton Rye Distillery is looking to combine the two flavors in a new way.
The Iowa-based company has started...
| Apr 4, 2013
Crave a 32-ounce big gulp of your favorite ale from the local microbrewery? Have at it.
How about a gallon jug brimming with 128 ounces of craft beer? You're welcome to it.
Just don't order your artisanal brew in a 64-ounce bottle. Florida lawmakers,...
| Apr 7, 2013
| 7:38 PM
WASHINGTON — In the fall of 1799, George Washington wrote to his nephew: "Two hundred gallons of Whiskey will be ready this day for your call, and the sooner it is taken, the better, as the demand for this article is brisk."
The whiskey Washington...


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One of the hardest hit lines of business of the pandemic has been the restaurant industry. As of December, 2020 it’s estimated that 17% of all restaurants in the United States (over 110,000) have closed due to the impact of COVID-19. Many municipalities are taking legislative action to try to help local eateries to stay open – and safe.
View sample legislation >
Eating Out is Big Business
Dining at a restaurant is a popular American habit that has seen the food service sector grow to become the third largest employment industry in the country, employing more than 15 million people. It’s estimated that pre-pandemic, 20% of the United States population ate out at a full-service restaurant once a week and 83% of American families ate fast food at least once a week.
And Then Along Came COVID
We’re all fully aware of the sudden and extreme effect the COVID-19 pandemic had on ‘normalcy,’ including our ability to gather with friends and family at a favorite dining spot or local bar. Stay at home orders, social distancing, and other health-related restrictions quickly put the kibosh on all of that and sent millions of food service workers home, mostly without pay – and some, whose restaurants were already working with razor thin margins, without jobs to return to.
As the COVID health crisis has progressed, full-service restaurants have looked to their fast food counterparts to begin offering drive-up, curbside and delivery service in order to keep their businesses afloat. Municipalities have taken up the plight of their local eateries, providing legislative support for changes in food service ordinances and laws. However, ordering takeout has not addressed the need to get waitstaff back to work.
As a result, restaurants and local governments are working together to provide outdoor dining options, where possible. One solution has been making sidewalks and even some parking spaces available for seating and serving. While not ideal, especially in the northeast during winter months, it has allowed some dining establishments to remain open and even bring back some of their employees. In these exceptionally challenging economic times, even seemingly small moves like this can mean the difference between a business surviving and shuttering.
Useful examples from the eCode360® Library
If your community is interested in legislating to provide outdoor dining opportunities for your local restaurants, here are some useful examples that can be found in our eCode360 Library:
City of Havre de Grace, MD (Harford) – Executive Orders: Allow Temporary Outdoor Dining
City of Lancaster, PA (Lancaster) – Covid-19 Outdoor Retail Ordinance
Updating Municipal Codes is Vitally Important
As local governments continue to adjust and transform digitally to the ever-shifting needs of the COVID-19 era, keeping municipal codes updated has become more essential than ever. It’s important to sustain orderly and accessible knowledge of the most current regulations and resolutions in a timely manner.
We encourage our clients to submit code updates as soon as possible to make sure constituents and local government officials are always referencing and working with the most up-to-date resources. Clients can send legislation to [email protected].
Best Practices for Managing Your Codification Budget
Many of our client communities find it helpful to be on a code update schedule to help manage their budgets throughout the year. Our Client Care Advocates can work with you and explain the options and benefits of scheduled code updates. Give them a call at 800.836.8834 or send an email to [email protected]. They’d be happy to help or answer any other codification questions you might have.


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January 22 According to a report by the “Central News Agency”, on the 21st local time, EU leaders “strongly discouraged” Europeans from traveling under unnecessary circumstances and warned that stricter travel restrictions may be imposed in the next few days if insufficient efforts to curb the epidemic are insufficient.
According to reports, European Council President Michelle and European Commission President von der Leyen issued the above warning after a videoconference with the heads of government of the 27 countries of the European Union.
Von der Leyen said at the press conference that it is strongly recommended to avoid all non-essential travel at home and across borders.
Michelle said that more restrictions may be necessary to restrict non-essential travel.
Both EU senior officials said that they would further strengthen cooperative anti-epidemic actions “in the next few days”.
Von der Leyen said that “it is absolutely important to maintain the operation of the EU single market”, so labor and goods can cross the border sustainably.
“Only targeted measures will curb the virus, and practices such as a complete closure of borders are not superfluous.
They will seriously damage our economy, but the effect of curbing the virus is not very effective,” she said.
However, in order to avoid the closure of the border in the passport-free Schengen area within the EU, EU leaders agreed that testing must be strengthened.
From January 24, any traveler from outside the European Union will be tested for the novel coronavirus before departure, von der Leyen said.
Within the EU, some countries will require a prior screening of cross-border travellers who do not belong to the necessary categories.
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Best Buy CEO says Apple's iPad has halved some notebook salesInternal estimates at Best Buy suggest the iPad has cut into notebook sales by as much as 50 percent.
The news came as part of a change to Best Buy's retail strategy, according to the Wall Street Journal. Best Buy CEO Brian Dunn announced Tuesday that the iPad will be coming this fall to all 1,093 Best Buy retail stores.
The Richfield, Minn., company reported a 61 percent jump in profit Tuesday, as sales shifted away from big-screen televisions and PCs toward hand-held gadgets and consumer devices. In addition to several accounting changes, increased sales of smartphones and portable computers, especially the iPad, contributed to the surprise profit.
"People are willing to disproportionately spend for these devices because they are becoming so important to their lives," said Dunn.
Earlier this week, Dunn announced he views the iPad as a "magnificent shining light" in the new category of tablets. Dunn estimated that the iPad "had cannibalized sales from laptop PCs by as much as 50%," according to the Journal's report.
This holiday season, Best Buy hopes to capitalize even more on this shift in consumer spending by heavily promoting Apple's iPad and Amazon's Kindle in its stores.
However, Best Buy likely won't be the only major retailer with the iPad this holiday season. Target is rumored to be getting the iPad as early as Oct. 3. In April, a Walmart VP told BusinessWeek that the company expects to carry the iPad by the end of the year.


text: The Hotpoint brand is back on TV with an important media campaign on the main Italian television stations that will last until Christmas. The campaign protagonist is the built-in Space 400 refrigerator, featuring a 400 liter capacity in a 75 cm column. “We are proud to launch this important media campaign that stems from the desire to satisfy consumer needs through innovative solutions that offer new features in line with the market trends – said Novella Sardos Albertini, Head of Brands, Communication and Sell out, Whirlpool Italy -. The Space 400 fridge, hero product of the campaign, is in fact a concrete response to the growing needs of the Italian families to store food and drink in large quantities longer and in optimal conditions. A truly unique product for the Italian market”.


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Fans of PES 2020 are calling on Konami to tackle problems with the AI that influenced the last few games.
Gamers on the PES sub-Reddit, WEPES, argue that both PES 2018 and PES 2019 saw AI-controlled teams play precisely the same style of play that hindered replayability.
One fan writes: "I've been playing on PSX since Winning Eleven and never like 19 I've encountered a scripted AI like that.
"Very boring and unlikely high-level opponent tactics, if the CPU chooses to press high, the engagement has to be doubled in relation to the script factor we have to add the irritating issue of fouls completely in one direction, obviously only the reverse of the player.
Another gamer added: "Every year since the game left ps2 the AI has gradually got worse and worse. Scripting and liberty together with player choice.
"If 2020 is twice as great as 19, it still implies much worse than it was." However, not all supporters of PES were as damned.
One wrote: "If you have real AI issues, write down the matching specifics and bring it together to send to Konami.
"I also find it really funny that you complain about the AI in PES 2020 before you even play it, depending on how literally one tailor-made team performs..." In the meantime, the PES 2020 demo will land on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One and PC this month.
Konami revealed that the free trial version of PES 2020 will arrive on July 30th Steam and console shops as the Japanese developer is looking to steal a march on FIFA 20.
The PES 2020 demo features Quick Play and Co-op mode as well as an Edit mode where players can build their kits and teams. The PES 2020 demo will feature 14 teams. These include:
- Sao Paulo
- Vasco da Gama
- Boca Juniors
- River Plate
- Universidad de Chile
- Plus three other teams to be confirmed
Expect Manchester United to be one of three additional teams, after partnering with Konami for the first time in three years.


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New Lunds & Byerlys opens in Minneapolis this month
It's been built in the spot formerly occupied by Bergan's Supervalu.
With new owner planning a sell off, who will buy Cub Foods?
Current owner Supervalu is being bought for almost $3 billion.
Cub Foods' owner Supervalu to be bought in $3 billion deal
The new owner is United Natural Foods.


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Nike is planning phased job cuts that are expected to begin in late July and last through the fall, but there are few specifics about how many people the retailer plans to let go in total. The prospective layoffs were revealed in a companywide email first seen by Complex and later confirmed to Business Insider. The email from Nike CEO John Donahoe indicated that the cuts were not likely to take place in Nike’s retail stores, distribution centers or manufacturing facilities.
The job cuts come just after Nike revealed its Q4 results. For the three-month period ending May 31, 2020, the company experienced a net loss of $790 million compared to the same period the previous year. Revenues plunged 38% to $6.3 billion, primarily due to COVID-19 store closures in North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific/Latin America. These losses were partially offset by a 75% jump in Nike’s digital sales during Q4.
It’s likely the cuts are designed to reinforce Nike’s efforts to build on the momentum in digital sales, a fast-growing trend in retail. For example, Microsoft plans to shutter all its brick-and-mortar stores as it pivots to digital operations, although the technology company has a far smaller physical footprint (approximately 80 stores) than the sneaker giant. Nike operates more than 1,100 stores worldwide, with nearly 400 stores under various banners in the U.S. alone.
Donahoe maintained in the email that the job cuts were not a response to the pandemic and would not be done for cost reasons. The corporate restructuring program, termed Consumer Direct Acceleration, is a remedy to the “overburdened matrix” that the company has become, and is designed to simplify how Nike works and to increase its speed and responsiveness.
In a statement provided to Complex, Nike said: “Consumer Direct Acceleration is the next digitally empowered phase of our strategy. We are building a flatter, nimbler company and transforming Nike faster to define the marketplace of the future. We are shifting resources and creating capacity to reinvest in our highest potential areas, and we anticipate our realignment will likely result in a net loss of jobs. Reductions are not being done for cost savings. Any savings will be reinvested into our priorities.”


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Public sector undertaking Canara Bank launched several new products and services on the occasion of 118 Founder’s Day.
The latest launch includes corporate ai1 to cater to the diverse needs of the corporate customers of the bank. This will allow them to perform banking transactions through corporate internet banking and on the ‘Canara ai1 Corporate’ app interchangeably, a Whatsapp banking channel, to provide 18 services, such as balance enquiries and mini statements, via a Hi/Hello message on 9076030001.
In addition, it also introduced Canara UPI 123 Pay, an IVR-based UPI solution for feature phone users. Account holders of any bank can avail of this facility in 10 Indian languages, including English.
K Satyanarayana Raju, MD and CEO of Canara Bank, and the executive directors introduced the goods and services.


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National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has approved the first indigenous alternative herbal supplements to vaccines and antibiotics for poultry in Nigeria.
The herbal supplements provided succor to 1,468 farm centers in Nigeria that were faced with threats from various diseases affecting their birds on the farms.
The co-founder and managing director of Ehibaghe Organic System, manufacturer of the herbal product, Adedeji Babatunde, who announced this on Tuesday in a press statement in Calabar, Cross River State, stated that the management of the company is grateful to NAFDAC for believing in the supplements by granting them approval to be legally recognized to serve as an alternative to vaccines for poultry in Nigeria.
He said that the herbal supplements fight bacteria, fungi, and viral infections as well as improve microbes that play a crucial role in poultry productivity and health.
Adedeji further explained that over the years, the health of birds and the productive status of farms that patronize the supplements have drastically improved due to reduced cases of sickness.
The managing director assured that the company would expand its product to enable it to cater more to many farms in Nigeria in a few months after it is officially launched.


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Discussions around who owns the customer are not new, with the idea of portable profiles often mooted at conferences. But what if it was a big brand such as Amazon, Google or even Booking.com?
Andy Owen Jones, co-founder and CEO of data and personalization specialist bd4travel, says that over time, who owns the customer profile is going to change.
“At the moment everyone is trying to own their own profile, and I’ll think you’ll see some shared profiles coming up with customers owning their own profiles and giving access to those profiles.”
He adds that a situation with an "objective third party" owning the profile could also arise, akin to credit scores with Experian.
Get the full story at PhocusWire


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Chennai, Aug 27 : After developing lithium-ion automotive batteries for two and three wheelers and light commercial vehicles and raising $2 million funding from four investors, the IIT Madras incubated research and development (R&D) outfit Grinntech Motors & Services will soon start manufacturing their product at their facility here, said top company officials.
They said talks are on with domestic and overseas electric vehicle makers, power drive makers and also battery manufacturers for business.
“The company has raised $2 million from four investors. Already a sum of $1 million has gone into the company put in by the two promoters and IIT Research Park,” Lakshmi Narayanan, former Vice Chairman, Cognizant and one of the investors told reporters.
The other three investors are former Vice Chairman of Ashok Leyland V. Sumantran, realtor K.S. Manian of Radiance Group and automotive component group UCAL.
Sumantran and Narayanan will be joining the board of Grinntech.
Queried about sourcing of lithium-ion for the batteries Nikhilesh Mishra, Co-Founder and CEO Grinntech, said the company is not into battery cell manufacturing and the cells will be sourced.
On the central government’s decision to allow registration of electric vehicles without batteries Sumantran said it is more for developing swappable batteries.
He said electric vehicle battery makers can come up with a subscription model for fleet operators.
Mishra said the company licensing its technology to a couple of battery makers and others have got responses with over 40,000 battery installations including far off places like Leh, Ladakh and others.
Disclaimer: This story is auto-generated from IANS service.


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LG's financial shortcomings in its "Mobile Communications" division are well known, but its Q1 2017 earnings report paints an improved picture. LG sold 14.8 million phones in the quarter, which was a solid 10% jump from this time last year. For the first three months of the year, LG's mobile division had revenues of $2.61 billion, which was up 4% quarter-over-quarter and 2% year-over-year — LG says the improvement was driven by strong sales in the Americas of the new LG G6 and many mass-market models.
Though the small bump in revenues is good, the important change has been on the backside where structural changes have cut costs and nearly returned the division to profitability. The Mobile Communications business lost money overall, but it was basically a rounding error — meanwhile its operating margin improved to 0%, which is a heck of a lot nicer than the -10% it has been hovering around for the last year.
LG's other divisions are much larger, but Mobile Communications still has to be profitable.
While LG's other divisions — like home entertainment and home appliances — are much larger and more profitable than the mobile division, it has been a point of emphasis for LG to return its mobile division to profitability after several weak quarters. Looking at the results in Q2 will paint an even clearer picture of where LG's mobile business stands, as it will include a full three months of LG G6 sales, and presumably another month of streamlining the business into profitability.
Despite annoying regional differences and a long delay before launch, the LG G6 has been received much better than the LG V20 or LG G5 of 2016 — something LG will hopefully be riding for both sales but also some brand awareness going through 2017. Whether you care for LG's current lineup of phones or not, I think we can agree it's important to have another strong competitor to Samsung at the top end of the Android market, if not in other lower-end market segments as well.
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Here's who NBA 2K21 thinks is going to win the NBA Finals
The NBA Finals are set to start on Wednesday, and with an intense matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat, we've decided to see how the teams would fare a bit early, thanks to some simulations in NBA 2K21.
The Google Pixel 5 is official — here's what you need to know!
It's here. The Google Pixel 5. From the specs, pricing, release date, and more, here's literally everything you need to know!
Everything you need to know about the Pixel 4a and Pixel 4a 5G
The Pixel 4a is now available, the Pixel 4a 5G is coming soon, and we've rounded up everything you need to know about both phones. Let's dive in!
Keep your Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 looking stylish with a new band
If you recently purchasedthe new Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 or you're planning to do so soon, make sure you've got the right bands for it!


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As part of a strategy to generate greater revenue from mobile data services, Vodafone Group PLC has collaborated with Palm Inc. to launch a smartphone modeled after the Treo 750v but at a fraction of the price and with a newly designed user interface.
Stories by John Blau
Details of Palm's new smart phone are emerging ahead of the product's launch on Wednesday.
Oracle Corp. has acquired Bridgestream Inc., a maker of software that helps companies map employee responsibilities, Oracle said Wednesday.
As in previous years, the IFA international consumer electronics show in Berlin has been a platform for manufacturers to launch innovative gadgets aimed at tech-savvy consumers. This year's event, which runs through to Wednesday, is no exception.
Vendors supporting HD DVD are cutting prices to boost their products, which are vying with Blu-ray disc technology to replace current DVD movie discs.
Samsung unveiled an MP3 music player with video playback and its first high-definition player supporting the two rival movie disc formats -- Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD.
On Thursday at a news conference organised by the Blu-ray Disc Association at the IFA consumer electronics show in Berlin, announcements included new Blu-ray Disc releases, a decision by Acer and China Huala Group to join as hardware partners and the establishment of a Blu-ray Disc authoring centre in China.
A word of caution about editing entries "anonymously" in Wikipedia: a tool has been developed that can show who made the changes.
With the launch of its K770 Cyber-shot phone, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications hopes to narrow the quality gap between dedicated digital cameras and mobile phones with integrated cameras.
German high-tech heavyweights SAP and Siemens are among the companies that hope to benefit from a government-funded programme to develop new semantic web technologies.
The growing popularity of video on the Web has prompted RealNetworks to launch a beta version of its RealPlayer software that allows users to easily record and download videos to their PCs.
Google is unhappy with proposed German legislation to ban anonymous e-mail accounts and may consider dropping the German version of its Gmail service.
Nokia plans to fold all its mobile phone development efforts into a single new business unit, reflecting the growing importance to its business of multimedia and internet-enabled devices.
Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications has released six new phones, including a high-end, Walkman-branded handset with around 9GB of internal Flash memory, according to a company spokeswoman.
Researchers at Siemens have transmitted data over polymer optical fibre cable at around 1G bps, opening up new possibilities for the technology, including easy-to-build home networks linking PCs and high-definition TVs


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Usually popular opinion regards gambling operators as uncaring criminals, profiting from the addiction allegedly caused by gambling. It seems that things in Sweden are a little different. Online gambling news in Sweden learned that Svenska Spel, the Swedish giant gambling operator, has spent considerable time helping a local store owner solve a mysterious crime.
Svenska Spel, a Swedish gambling state-owned monopoly, operating in full compliance with Swedish gambling laws, assisted a small diamond shop owner in bringing a homeless boy sleeping outside his store to justice.
The diamond store owner from Vellinge discovered that several hundreds of thousands of Swedish kronor were missing from the store. He immediately suspected that a few homeless sleeping across the street must be responsible.
His suspicions laid upon a 13-year-old boy and he turned to Svenska Spel for assistance. The gambling operator was able to identify the boy as a hustler outside one of its gambling halls working for mafia owners of several online casinos in Sweden and provided the store owner with further details.
It turned out that the boy was working with an employee of the diamond store, tentatively identified as Swedish national, who’s spent over SEK400,000 (presumably stolen from the diamond store) gambling and won around SEK300,000, which he naturally kept for himself.
Svenska Spel also was able to confirm an unusual pattern in which the clerk played. The distinctive gaming pattern virtually guaranteed winnings, suggesting that the gamer was either mentally retarded or was not playing with her own funds.
The case was forwarded to the police, who have already questioned the clerk about how could she afford to wager such large amounts on a monthly salary of SEK8,000. The clerk denies all theft accusations and says she was gambling on money provided by her mother.
The matter is now in local court, where the clerk could face both administrative and criminal charges.


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Matt Valentini of the JBG Companies and Michael C. Swartz of David M. Schwarz Architects met with the Cardozo Shaw Neighborhood Association (CSNA) last night to present plans for their proposed 250-room hotel at the current site of the Rite Aid at 13th and U Streets, NW.
The team began their presentation describing the current Rite Aid-dominated single-story strip mall on site as a "suburban building type" that under-utilizes its prominent location. "The Metro being at the corner of 13th and U really makes this a focal point not only for the neighborhood by the historic district as a whole,” said Swartz. The architect’s stated goal in designing the hotel is to make something more “iconic and memorable,” who went on to identify numerous area precedents for the bayed brick design, including the Dunbar and Whitelaw Hotels.
Their current plans call for the building to top out a 10-stories, though they are alternatively exploring the possibility of limiting it to nine. A final determination on the building's height will be made once the development begins the approval process with local governing bodies such as the ANC 1B, the Historic Preservation Review Board and the Office of Planning.
At its’ current 90 foot height, the proposed hotel would require multiple variances in order to exceed the by-right height limit of 65 feet. Valentini countered criticisms that the hotel was a “colossus” by outlining the various benefits the project would offer: one hundred and fifty permanent jobs (sold!), a gallery showcasing the work of the local artists, future contributions to local community organizations, a public pool and spas, and guest vouchers to promote Metro use were among the items cited. “All those things are out there to be publicly consumed,” said Valentini.
According to the JBG representative, a project at the permitted 65 feet would not be economically feasible, especially considering that the developer must accommodate Rite Aid, which has leased the site until 2026. The hotel will retain the 25,000 square feet of retail presently available, though most of it will be devoted to the pharmacy. The remaining ground floor space will be allotted to glass-fronted retail and Valentini told the audience that JBG is “considering people on U Street today” as possible tenants.
Amenities planned for the hotel include the aforementioned gallery and pool, as well as a hotel restaurant, rooftop bar, meeting space and green roof – in keeping with the project’s pledged LEED silver certification. Furthermore, the development team stated that they had already amended their design to address a primary community concern: parking along already congested U Street. The current design features an all-valet two-story garage that will utilize mechanical stacking devices to far surpass the amount of spaces required by zoning.
JBG has yet to formally announce a flag for the hotel, but did say that they have reached out to hotelier Denihan Hospitality Group about the U Street project. “They do smaller boutique hotels, but we like their style and one of the things we’ve really talked about is this idea of a hotel club,” said Valentini. “Whereby, when we a build spa, when we have a pool, when we have a fitness center, that’ll be open to the public too.”
Following the meeting, CSNA President Bryan Martin Firvida told DCmud:
While JBG was able to speak to many of the questions and concerns raised during the meeting, there are a still a number that will need to be addressed as the plans move ahead...Even though we're only in the concept and planning stages today, this project has already made an impact on our neighborhood, and will continue to do so, during planning, construction, and most importantly, long after the front doors of the hotel open for business....The end goal of course, is to ensure that once complete, this project makes a positive impact on our already great U Street neighborhood.Though JBG has yet to formally submit their application to the Office of Planning, the development team projects that the PUD process will begin in “late spring/summer.” At present, construction is tentatively scheduled for 2011, followed by a 2014 completion. In the meantime, the CSNA has opened up a website devoted solely to JBG’s 14th Street Hotel project: http://ustreethotel.csnadc.org/


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Sure the summer temperatures are sizzling but that certainly doesn’t mean you have to forgo your taste for the hot stuff. In fact, many people find high temperatures the perfect compliment to the hottest hot sauce around. If you’re hoping to taste test your way through the coming weeks, it’s time to hit the open road in search of hot sauce. Luckily there are more than enough options coming up in the near future, all across the US.
July is notorious for its hot summer nights and California is certainly heating things up for hot sauce enthusiasts. Mid-month ushers in the Hot Summer Night Festival to Thousand Oaks, with unlimited craft beer and hot sauce tastings. Next up, head north to Oregon for the Portland Hot Sauce Expo. Planned for the beginning of August, the two-day event calls for a reaper pepper eating contest and tastings from dozens of hot sauce brands. Staying up north, the North Hudson Pepper Fest is planned for mid-month in Wisconsin. While not specific to hot sauce, the festival does feature a hot pepper eating challenge; ensuring you’ll at least be able to quench your thirst for hot peppers before you hit the road once again.
Heading back to California, the California Hot Sauce Expo also kicks off in mid-August in Anaheim. The event features hot sauce tastings with an added array of spicy challenges on tap. The month winds down in the Lone Star State with the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival. The annual event brings together hundreds of different hot sauces, food and live music to the Austin area. Of course August 19 is also National Hot and Spicy Food Day. Even if you can’t hit the road this summer, it’s a good time to grab your favorite bottle of hot sauce and toast to another hot summer season.


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By Joe Kelly | Courthouse News
(CN) — Jake Gehring lives on a 500-acre dairy farm situated in the same pocket of Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine his ancestors staked out in 1856, making him the sixth generation to operate Gehring Stone House Dairy in the small town of Hartford, which he runs with his wife, Molly, and father, LeRoy.
Gehring’s 5-month-old daughter, already a fixture in the milking stalls, would be the seventh generation should she choose to take up the family mantle.
For Wisconsin dairy farmers, however, the future is uncertain. Hard times are nothing new, but the myriad impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, coupled with preexisting marketplace strains largely outside farmers’ control, paint a dire picture for the $45 billion dollar a year flagship industry in America’s Dairyland.
The decline of the small, family-owned Wisconsin dairy farm has occurred over the last half century, fueled by a global surplus of milk driving down prices, the competition of gigantic megafarms milking thousands of cows, costly tariffs and trade wars, and shifts in consumer taste toward dairy alternatives like soy and almond milks.
Wisconsin lost more than one-third of its dairy farms between 2011 and 2018. In 2019 alone, 818 dairy farms shuttered, a disappearance of more than 10% of the state’s dairies at a rate of roughly two per day. Wisconsin leads the nation in farm foreclosures and has seen a troublingly steady rise in farmers dying by suicide in recent years.
Then Covid-19 tore across the world, tanking markets, limiting movement and snarling supply lines, which include the now partially shutdown food service industry where more than half of Wisconsin’s dairy goes.
This leaves farmers like Gehring, whose herd clocks in around 185 cows, stuck with huge quantities of unbottled, unpasteurized milk, for which they still have to pay fees to state and national dairy cooperatives but cannot sell or give away.
The 26-year-old Gehring laid out in an interview that “our expenses are all the same but our most recent pay was half.”
Tom Oberhaus, who operates Cozy Nook Farm in Waukesha with his wife Joan, is in a similar situation. Before Covid-19, the milk from his 80 dairy cows sold for about $17 per 100-pound parcel, or hundredweight, but post-coronavirus that same hundredweight only brings in about $11.
“To put that in perspective,” Oberhaus said, “it’s like saying ‘now we’re requesting you to continue coming to work but instead of a paycheck on Friday we’re handing you a bill.’”
Oberhaus estimated the current coronavirus maelstrom is causing him to hemorrhage about $300 per day.
Both Oberhaus and Gehring admitted they have made next to nothing off dairy in recent years, necessitating side hustles to make ends meet. Oberhaus seasonally sells pumpkins and Christmas trees, while Gehring moves 30 acres of winter wheat when the time is right.
With prices too low and supplies too high, some farmers have been faced with the agonizing choice to dump thousands of pounds of surplus milk, although neither Oberhaus nor Gehring have had to do so yet.
All of which begs the question: what is getting done at the state and federal level to assist farmers in crisis? What can be done?
At the state level, Democratic Governor Tony Evers and the GOP-controlled Wisconsin Legislature eventually overcame their public-facing animosity and worked on broad farm aid legislation after Evers called a special session on the matter in January.
That legislation, which featured property tax credits for farmers and other financial aid, passed the State Assembly and went on to the Senate, where it waits today.
Wisconsin also earmarked $8.8 million in annual funding for the state’s Dairy Innovation Hub, a coalition between divisions of three Wisconsin universities dedicated to broadly-defined dairy research, in the 2019 biennial budget over which the governor and the legislature are still fighting in court.
Mark Stephenson, professor and director of dairy policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin, cautioned that “at the state level it’s really difficult to do anything to address the situation,” while pointing out that the state Department of Agriculture, Transportation and Consumer Protection, or DATCP, “has been massively busy…doing everything they can to grease the skids to make sure the dairy supply chain is working well under extreme conditions.”
Moves like the Dairy Innovation Hub investment are all well and good, Stephenson says, but “all the stuff that’s been done so far was looking at this long term.”
According to DATCP spokeswoman Grace Atherton, the agency has partnered with state dairy cooperatives like Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin to offer farmers information and resources to connect the dots in the supply chain during the current public health emergency.
Atherton noted in an email that the state-level Covid-19 relief bill known as Wisconsin Act 185, passed by the legislature and signed by Evers in mid-April, “did not include any provisions to provide assistance or relief to farmers.”
DATCP has also petitioned the federal government for relief, including in an April letter to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue asking for direct aid and commodity buybacks in an attempt to slow the bleeding.
In turn, the USDA and President Donald Trump’s administration earlier this month announced a $19 billion emergency aid package for farmers, which includes $16 billion in direct payments as well as $3 billion reserved for buying back and redistributing surplus products. Perdue has said he hopes the money will start flowing by the end of May.
Atherton said rollout of the recent $2.2 trillion CARES Act and the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program caused initial confusion for farmers and agri-business owners, leading to delays “which ended up being a missed opportunity for some who might have benefited from these programs.”
Helpful as all that aid potentially is, just about everyone involved, from industry experts to bureaucrats to farmers, seems to agree that the terms and strategy for channeling those dollars to those in need is foggy at best.
Both Gehring and Oberhaus said they have no idea how much of that relief is coming to them and when, with Oberhaus saying “it’s as clear as mud as to what that boils down to for us dairy farmers.”
Larger dairy marketing cooperatives like the Kansas City-based Dairy Farmers of America, or DFA, reported famers dumping milk as a last resort in April, but have also coordinated pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into initiatives to get surplus milk to local food banks for consumption, and have put pressure on grocery stores and supermarkets administering restrictive limits on dairy purchases and reporting dairy shortages when farmers have milk that cannot get off their hands.
Stephenson offered that while both the cash payments and buybacks should help farmers, putting cash in their hands does not really address the heart of the problem.
The bottom line, according to Stephenson, is simpler.
“Stop producing as much milk,” he said. “We have to tap on the brakes.”
Gehring, whose farm churns out around 16,000 pounds of milk per day, said that DFA asked him to cut back his production by 10% in response to the Covid-19 market drubbing, leaving him to find a way to winnow down 1,600 pounds of milk daily.
Cows do not watch the markets, though, and they cannot just make less milk on a dime. Gehring’s wife Molly explained that due to the cows’ complicated lactation cycles, in reality it could take up to 10 months to encourage slower milk production in part by altering cows’ feeding routines.
Another avenue is herd culling, which Gehring has done, recently bringing his herd from 200 down to 185. Stephenson explained culling could be incentivized by offering bonuses on cows that are removed through herd reduction programs like one the federal government implemented during a dairy crisis in the 1980s.
But sending culled cows to beef processing plants, for instance, may not be an option in the era of Covid-19. Meat processing plants nationwide, including the JBS plant in Green Bay, temporarily shut down this week amid spikes in infections linked to the plants’ operations.
Dairy farmers treading water often field well-intentioned questions on why they continue, as if the choice to uproot from centuries of bloodline tradition is the remedy for shockwaves from a global pandemic few could envision.
Gehring said in an email that both he and Molly grew up on farms and “are happy to continue that with our daughter as long as we’re given the opportunity.”
“Family farming builds strong family relationships and teaches you hard work, as well as to appreciate what’s around you,” Gehring said.
Barring resolution of a lawsuit from the GOP-controlled Wisconsin Legislature before the state supreme court over an extension to the governor’s safer-at-home order, for now the Badger State’s partial shutdown extends until Memorial Day weekend. The Evers administration has proffered turning the dial on certain restrictions for nonessential businesses as the pandemic abates and has laid out reopening the state for business in phases, neither of which have appeased state conservatives lacing into the Democratic administration for a quicker return to normalcy.
No matter what, for dairy farmers in the crush of Covid-19, the situation is unprecedented and the future is bargained for on a daily basis.
“I’ve never seen anything quite like this,” Stephenson said. “We’re sort of trying to stumble our way toward a solution and there’s none that are really a good solution, just ones that might be worse.”


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Distribution for the 2012 yearbook takes place Thursday, June 28, at the student store, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
The yearbook staff will hand out to students with identification only. In some cases, a student may not be on the presale list. For that reason, be advised to bring your receipt as proof of purchase.
A limited number of books will be available for cash at $75. When those sell out, the book cost goes up to $85 and reprints will be ordered for those second-printing buyers.


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Freudenberg Group Plans Technology Briefings for Customers
PLYMOUTH, Mich., Jan. 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Freudenberg Group will showcase a broad range of products for its customers during press and supplier day previews during the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
Senior executives from seven of the company's business units, including Freudenberg Sealing Technologies, Vibracoustic, Freudenberg Filtration Technologies, Freudenberg Performance Materials, Kluber Lubrication, Chem-Trend and VIAM, will host technology previews for their automotive customers at the Crowne Plaza Detroit Downtown Riverfront hotel during auto-show preview week (Jan. 16-18).
"Freudenberg provides the auto industry with a wide variety of products from vibration-control systems and lubricants to leading-edge sealing technologies," noted Bob Evans, president of Freudenberg North America. "The Detroit auto show gives us a unique opportunity to update our customers on product technology developments, as well as to introduce various new products."
Freudenberg develops and delivers innovative solutions for internal combustion, hybrid, electric and fuel-cell powered vehicles focused on the challenging future of mobility. During Detroit's auto show preview days, the company also will showcase a new online "automotive mobility" platform designed to share future industry forecasts and observations as well as Freudenberg's contributions to the future of mobility.
Dr. Tilman Krauch, the company's chief technology officer and a member of the Freudenberg Group Board of Management, noted that Freudenberg technology and products on display at the Crown Plaza will include:
Freudenberg Sealing Technologies
In support of traditional and new mobility options, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies will display products that assist with thermal management, power efficiency and friction- and weight-reduction challenges. Among the products on display are revolutionary Levitex®, Levitas and Levitorq families of low-friction seals and gaskets that reduce friction by up to 90 percent versus traditional components.
In addition, visitors will be able to see DIAvent pressure management solutions for batteries used in electric and hybrid-electric vehicles, Plug & Seal Systems that reduce weight and leakage issues, and radial shaft and crankshaft seal components that integrate electrically-conductive nonwoven materials and sensors to optimize powertrain function and performance.
Vibracoustic, known for its innovative vibration-control solutions, will feature several new products that address future mobility trends related to noise, vibration and harshness (NVH). Frank Mueller, CEO of Vibracoustic, noted that topics discussed and showcased in Detroit will include a tube-in-tube prop-shaft decoupling system, which makes hybridization of existing architectures easier; an overrunning damper-isolator pulley, which helps to reduce emissions, and air spring suspension systems with benefits for fully electric vehicles.
Freudenberg Filtration Technologies
Hybrid-electric, electric and autonomous vehicle systems are dramatically changing vehicle architecture and creating opportunities for interior filtration features that will impact passenger health and comfort. Freudenberg Filtration Technologies will display sophisticated new filtration systems designed for next-generation vehicles of all kinds.
Freudenberg Performance Materials
Freudenberg Performance Materials will showcase an aerodynamic underbody system with a unique multi-layer composite that offers improved durability, rigidity, and road-noise absorption. The new composite also offers weight savings of 15 to 40 percent compared to conventional underbody systems and is 100-percent recyclable.
The performance materials group also will introduce a lithium-ion battery separator made from ultra-thin PET nonwoven materials. Impregnated with ceramic particles, the new separator guarantees reliable separation, high energy efficiency, easy-and-economical installation and safe operation.
Kluber will display proven solutions for combating squeaks, rattles and a variety of other NVH issues that affect automotive quality. Today's cars and light trucks have more than 250 friction points and Kluber has developed the right lubricant for each, including applications for braking, steering, chassis, suspension and powertrain systems.
Executives from Freudenberg's Chem-Trend group will discuss the company's ability to develop customer-specific solutions for a wide variety of die-casting, injection-molding and composite-molding applications – solutions based on the latest advances in water- and solvent-based technologies.
VIAM, the most recent addition to the Freudenberg family of businesses, also will exhibit in the Freudenberg suite during NAIAS preview week. With manufacturing plants in Tennessee and Mexico, the company supplies carpeted and all-weather floor, trunk and cargo mats for major car makers in North America.
About the Freudenberg Group
Freudenberg is a global technology group that strengthens its customers and society long-term through forward-looking innovations. Together with its partners, customers and research institutions, the Freudenberg Group develops leading-edge technologies and excellent products and services for more than 30 markets and for thousands of applications: seals, vibration control components, nonwovens, filters, specialty chemicals, medical products, IT services and the most modern cleaning products. Strength of innovation, strong customer orientation, diversity, and team spirit are the cornerstones of the Group. The nearly 170-year-old company holds strong to its core values: a commitment to excellence, reliability and pro-active, responsible action. In 2016, the Freudenberg Group employed more than 48,000 people in almost 60 countries worldwide and generated sales of approximately €8.6 billion.
SOURCE Freudenberg North America
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Deodorant chemical found in tumours
SCIENTISTS have found traces of chemicals used in antiperspirants and deodorants in breast tumours.
The materials, parabens, are used in the products as preservatives. But the discovery does not imply cause and effect, as both the cosmetics industry and cancer experts hastened to insist.
The study, by Philippa Darbre, from Reading University, and colleagues, examined material from 20 breast tumours. The team reports in Journal of Applied Toxicology that the chemicals are present, and in a form that suggests they entered through the skin.
Dr Darbre said: “Parabens are used as preservatives in thousands of cosmetic, food and pharmaceutical products, but this is the first study to show their accumulation in human tissues.”
She added: “Their detection in human breast tumours is of concern since


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Hermès reports strong growth across geographies and business segments
The Hermès Group’s consolidated revenue amounted to 6,602 million euros at the end of September 2021, up 57 percent at constant exchange rates and 54 percent at current exchange rates compared to the same period in 2020. This increase is 35 percent over two years. In the third quarter, the group’s consolidated revenue reached 2,367 million...
21 Oct 2021
Video: Hermès SS22 collection
In this video, French luxury fashion label Hermès has revealed its SS22 collection at Paris Fashion Week (PFW).Watch the video below. Do you want to see more clothing collections? Click here to view theFashionUnited Marketplace. Video: Hermès via YouTube Photo credit: Hermès, Facebook
19 Oct 2021
Hermès welcomes students to leatherworking school
Luxury fashion house Hermès has introduced its École Hermès des savoir-faire (the Hermès School of know-how) centred around leatherworking and craftsmanship. The French house has opened its doors to new potential talents, including those with no professional craftsmanship skills, to leather workshops. The first school of the luxury brand will...
9 Sep 2021
Hermès in the Making event is coming to Copenhagen
Luxury fashion house Hermès has announced it will be inviting the public to meet its artisans and acquaint themselves with the brand’s craftsmanship for Hermès in the Making. A selection of exhibitions, workshops, conferences and films will make up the event, unveiling the brand’s contemporary manufacturing process and revealing how items are...
7 Sep 2021
Hermès to launch nail polish
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and in Hermès goals for increased revenue. After the successful launch of their lipstick and blush, Hermès is adding to their portfolio of beauty products with a 24-shade nail-care line. Each of the 24 shades contains biosourced pigments and is high quality enough for just one coat. The colors were developed...
1 Sep 2021
Hermès rebounds to pre-corona sales and profit levels
French luxury group said Friday that its sales and profit had bounded past pre-pandemic levels in the second quarter. While the firm known for its leather handbags and silk scarves acknowledged the exceptional nature of its performance due to the fact its stores were closed in many countries during the second quarter of last year, it also said...
30 Jul 2021
Video: Hermès presents its Kellymorphose jewellery collection
In this video, French fashion brand Hermès has presented its Kellymorphose jewellery collection. Watch the video below. Video: Hermès via YouTube
27 Jul 2021
Video: Hermès SS22 menswear collection
In this video, French fashion house Hermès has presented its SS22 menswear collection at Paris Men's Fashion Week (PFW). Watch the video below. Video: Hermès via YouTube
30 Jun 2021
5 highlights from Paris men's fashion week
Paris men’s fashion week was a mix of live shows, digital presentations and guest designers, including London-based Burberry, which eschewed the LFW calendar to be on the official Paris schedule. Here are our top five picks of the Paris SS22 collections: Y/PROJECT x Fila When Y/Project showcased its Fila collaboration during Paris men’s fashion...
28 Jun 2021
Hermès posts strong growth across geographies and businesses
In the first quarter of 2021, Hermès group’s consolidated revenue amounted to 2,084 million euros, up 44 percent at constant exchange and up 38 percent at current exchange rates driven by strong performance in Asia and Japan, the upturn in America and a good resistance in Europe. The organic revenue growth was 33 percent compared to the first...
22 Apr 2021
Will demand for It Bags make a return post pandemic?
Sales of handbags saw a sharp decline during the pandemic when stuck at home consumers found expensive bags to be a non-necessity. Despite surging numbers in the resale market for pre-owned luxury, the lifestyle changes brought on by Covid-19 dampened interest in this once booming category. As occasionwear slowly makes its way back to the winter...
19 Mar 2021
Hermès reimagines Victoria travel bag in mushroom "leather"
Hermès has found a “vegan leather” option that is not plastic. The famed luxury label is set to released a reworked version of its Victoria travel bag made from Sylvania materials that were created in partnership with MycoWorks’ Fine Mycelium, a patented cultivation process that uses fungi’s capacity to bind itself to other materials. “MycoWorks...
12 Mar 2021


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By Alessandra Galloni, Reuters
Dec 2 (Reuters) – The Omicron variant of COVID-19 could slow global economic growth by exacerbating supply chain problems and depressing demand, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told the Reuters Next conference on Thursday.
Yellen cited a great deal of uncertainty about the impact of the highly contagious variant, first detected in South Africa, given the severe U.S. economic slowdown caused by the emergence of the Delta variant of COVID-19 earlier this year.
“Hopefully it’s not something that’s going to slow economic growth significantly,” Yellen said, adding, “There’s a lot of uncertainty, but it could cause significant problems. We’re still evaluating that.”
Yellen said the new strain of the coronavirus could exacerbate supply chain problems and boost inflation, but it could also depress demand and cause slower growth, which would ease some of the inflationary pressures.


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Hey! This the #3 part of the top 5 upcoming smartphones in march 2021. We have recently covered Part 1 & Part 2 of the series. Since there are lots of phones going to launch in March 2021 so we have divided them into parts.
1. Vivo S9
Vivo has officially announced that their so-called S9 series will be launching on March 3 in China. Vivo smartphones are known for their camera performance and slim designs, continuing this trend Vivo S9 is said to have an improved selfie camera. Also, some of its specifications are also leaked ahead of launch, Vivo S9 is said to come with a 6.44-inch display running on a 90Hz refresh rate.
The phone will have a 5G support that will run on Dimensity 1100 processor. Vivo S9 will have a 4000mAh battery with 33W fast-charging.
2. IQOO Neo 5
Vivo has officially announced that IQOO Neo 5 will be launched on March 16. IQOO Neo 5 is going to be a successor of IQOO Neo 3 5G. The smartphone is said to come with a price tag of CNY 2,999 which is around INR Rs 34,000.
As per the leaks, the phone will be powered by Snapdragon 870 processor in an 8GB RAM & 128GB ROM variant. The phone will run on Android 11 along with great editing features. Whereas, the phone will come with a 4400mAh battery with a fast-charging support too.
3. Realme 8 series
Realme 8 series might launch in India very soon. Realme has officially confirmed that the phone will have a 108MP camera setup. Recently, the phone was spotted in Salman Khan’s hand who is the brand ambassador of Realme India smartphones.
Realme 8 series design seems to be quite similar to the Realme 7 series with a large logo of “DARE TO LEAP” on the phone.. The series pro variant is said to be a 5G smartphone. We are not quite sure about the specifications of the phone so we have to wait for its official launch. There is high probability that the phone will be seen in March.
4. Redmi Note 10 Series
Redmi Note 10 series is going to launch on the 4th of March in India. The new leaked image of the vanilla Redmi Note 10 has revealed almost all major specifications of the phone. The Phone will have a 6.43-inch punch-hole shape AMOLED display running on Snapdragon 678 SoC processor along with an Android 11 and MIUI 12 operating system.
The phone will have a 5000mAh battery and a 33W fast-charger for quick charging. The phone will have a 120Hz refresh rate with all major connectivity settings present.
5. Redmi K40 Series
Redmi K40 series is the flagship lineup of the Redmi smartphones comprised of three smartphones Redmi K40, K40 Pro, and K40 Pro+ respectively. The phone has already been launched in China and going to be launch globally very soon.
The K40 series phones have the same 6.67″ SUPER AMOLED display that has a 300Hz touch-sampling rate and a 120Hz refresh rate. Display maximum brightness can reach upto 1300 nits, so the user will not face any difficulty while viewing the screen outdoors. The phone back is made up of glass with Gorilla Glass 5 protection. Redmi K40 Pro and K40 Pro+ will be powered by Snapdragon 870 which is an overclocked version of Snapdragon 865.


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NVIDIA has long been proud of the tools it offers game developers, and it’s without fail that we learn more about them at each Game Developers Conference. 2014’s San Francisco event is no exception, and while the company’s “GameWorks” solution has a number of notable updates, NVIDIA’s most proud to talk about some of the support it’s been receiving.
At the forefront, none other than Epic Games has vowed its complete support for GameWorks, and it’s even designed Unreal Engine 4 to work better with it. This could be the first game engine that NVIDIA could tout as “The Way It’s Meant To Be Played” – if it wanted to. Epic Games’ Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney has said, “Epic developed Unreal Engine 4 on NVIDIA hardware, and it looks and runs best on GeForce.” It doesn’t get much more cut-and-dry than that.
In other news, Daylight, a game we wrote about last week thanks to a new NVIDIA promotion, makes use of NVIDIA’s Turbulence technology for dynamic fog, particle and smoke effects, and also takes advantage of PostWorks and ShadowWorks (an HBAO+ feature).
Last week, we learned that Crytek’s game engine would support Linux, but as we can now see, that’s not the only announcement the developer had up its sleeve. Now announced is the fact that the developer’s upcoming free-to-play shooter Warface will also be making use of NVIDIA GameWorks, with Turbulence and PhysX particle support.
Lastly, but certainly not least, the just-released Titanfall also gets some GameWorks support, which will come to us in the form of TXAA and HBAO+. Hopefully aside from this, the game will also experience some sweet performance improvements, since that’s undoubtedly been the biggest complaint I’ve heard about the game since its release.
NVIDIA’s been cluing us into some of the love GameWorks is getting at GDC over the past couple of days, and chances are the announcements are not even finished. Perhaps we’ll learn even more at NVIDIA’s own GTC conference next week, which we’ll be attending.


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The potential scale of the United States’ electric vehicle battery production has been given an encouraging boost following a new analysis of the Salton Sea geothermal deposits.
A Department of Energy report detailed that there is enough lithium in the Southern California site to create batteries for 375 million EVs, as The Press-Enterprise reported. It’s enough to replace every dirty-fuel-powered vehicle on U.S. roads today.
“It’s pretty exciting how much is there,” said Michael McKibben, a geology research professor from UC Riverside who contributed to the report.
"A federal analysis released Tuesday confirmed Southern California’s Salton Sea contains enough lithium to meet the nation’s needs for decades."https://t.co/UX0hc0CKWq— Human Progress (@HumanProgress) December 7, 2023
While not only representing a bright future for the production and take up of low-pollution vehicles throughout the country, it also signals a clear path to move away from reliance on lithium imports from South America and China.
EnergySource Minerals is just one of the companies looking to take advantage of this resource, with plans to build a lithium facility in the Salton Sea area by 2025.
It is seeking to deliver the “cleanest, most efficient lithium process in the world,” which will see it extract the valuable metal from the brine created by existing geothermal electric plants.
The expected facility will extract the lithium found in that brine before injecting the unused substances back into the Earth.
Current processes to extract lithium usually involve hard-rock mining or massive evaporation pools, according to The Press-Enterprise, and both can be harmful to the environment.
EnergySource Minerals’ method will be far less intrusive and much more cost-effective, which should be beneficial for future EV customers as electric cars and trucks should be less costly to construct, with savings theoretically passed on to consumers.
The United States Government has set a goal to make 50% of all vehicles electric by 2030, and abundant lithium sources will be vital to achieve it.
Lithium batteries can be charged quickly and transfer energy efficiently, making them a key component of electronic devices. While some have criticized the technology for not being as environmentally friendly as advertised because of the difficulties of recycling the materials in these batteries, many companies are proving that lithium can be extracted from old batteries and used again in a cost-effective manner.
And with the southern states in America embracing the battery boom, thanks to green policies and initiatives introduced by the U.S. Government, the nation’s impressive lithium reserves will no doubt encourage domestic development and electric vehicle delivery.
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Carbon potential huge, says multi-million $ seller
Carbon potential huge, says multi-million dollar seller
New Zealander foresters have just made the country's first major sale of local carbon credits into the European market.
Carbon market specialist information service Carbon News reports that the man behind a multi-million dollar sale says that carbon is potentially a major export and could make up to 80 per cent of forestry company revenue.
Ernslaw One has just sold 520,000 tonnes of New Zealand AAUs to a European buyer. The sale was handled by Hamilton-based Carbon Market Solutions, Carbon News (http://www.carbonnews.co.nz/) reports.
Neither company will give details about the price or buyer, but Carbon News understands that the units sold at around 10 euros, making the deal worth more than $11 million.
Because AAUs are not allowed into the European emissions trading scheme, it is likely that the units were sold to a European government which will use them to meet its country obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.
The deal – the first into Europe - is being hailed as a breakthrough because it recognises the carbon sequestering value of New Zealand’s plantation forests.
Ernslaw One managing director Thomas Song told Carbon News that the deal proves the viability of carbon as an export for New Zealand forest owners – if the government provides certainty around the ETS.


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PC Advisor is pleased to announce that this year’s Home Broadband Survey is now live. The annual questionnaire asks readers to report on their home broadband service provider and how well the ISP in question is living up to their expectations. The results are used to assess how well customers are being served by broadband providers as a whole and how well individual ISPs are performing. The ISPs that get the best reports from readers earn PC Advisor awards.
PC Advisor has run a broadband survey for the past seven years and, using its findings, has reported on the changing internet connection landscape. The survey asks participants to provide details of how long they have been with their current broadband provider, how much they pay for their monthly subscription and whether the connection speed enjoyed is in line with the bandwidth promised. With better backing from Ofcom, customers are now in a stronger position than ever before to take their ISP to task over inadequate connection speeds and broken promises and are no longer tied in to lengthy contracts with poorly-performing providers.
Making the switch to an alternative broadband provider is also easier than it used to be, thanks to swift migration processes. PC Advisor’s Home Broadband Survey is therefore invaluable in helping readers make an informed choice about which ISP to switch allegiance to.
To take part in this year’s survey, head to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JDCC98H. Participants get the chance to measure their current web connection speed and are automatically entered into a draw to win £100 of Amazon vouchers or one of several tech-related prizes.


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Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi has launched its first smartphone in the Indian market, the Xiaomi Mi 3. The phone is priced at Rs 14,999 ($250) and will go on sale on July 15.
Xiaomi brought its flagship Mi 3 to India today at a scarcely-believable Rs 14,999. With a Snapdragon 800 on board, this is by far the cheapest high-end phone in the market, making it competition for the likes of Nexus 5, Galaxy S4, Xperia Z at nearly half the price. But the big targets, the ones who should be really scared are the Indian phone makers.
Instead of selling its cheaper Redmi 1S or Redmi Note, last year’s Mi 3 is the company’s headliner. Given the competition in India from other flagships such as Gionee and it’s super-slim 5.5mm Elife S5.5, releasing the slightly dated Mi 3 could be the right move.
Also, given that supplies of the Redmi Note sold out incredibly fast in other markets, Xiaomi may be facing a stock crunch for the Note, while the Mi 3 has been in production for quite a while now, and it’s likely easier for the company to fill upcoming orders from its India launch.
It is important to note that while the Xiaomi phones don’t come with the Play Store and Google apps in China, they will support them in India.
No official word on retail availability so far but it is said that Flipkart will be one of the retailers of the device.
Along with the Mi 3 smartphone, Xiaomi has also launched the Mi Power Bank in 10400mAh and 5200mAh capacities but without pricing and availability details.


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TORONTO – Canadians must stop Americans from using Internet pharmacies (search) to raid its medicine chest or face a drug shortage, a coalition of Canadian groups representing seniors, pharmacies and patients has warned.
The groups, claiming to represent 10 million Canadians, or about one-third the population, called on the Canadian government Monday to ban prescription drug exports.
They argue that Canada cannot afford to address U.S. drug shortages and soaring prescription costs with its own stock, which are often considerably cheaper for Americans because of government price controls.
An estimated 65 million Americans, most elderly, don't have drug coverage or can't afford drugs in the United States. Internet pharmacies and Canadian doctors willing to write prescriptions for Americans send an estimated $1 billion a year in Canadian drugs south of the border.
"It is completely untenable to think that Canada could supply their needs and our own for even one month, let along on an ongoing basis," said Louise Binder of the Canadian Treatment Action Council and Best Medicines Coalition (search).
Binder said she has heard that in Winnipeg, Manitoba, there is a shortage of desperately needed cancer drugs that are readily available to American consumers through Internet pharmacies based in Canada.
But Canada's health department insists Americans don't pose a threat to the country's drug supply. For example, Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh (search) said Monday he believes Canada has a surplus of vaccine that could be provided to the United States, though probably not enough to meet the U.S. demand.
The United States is grappling with a shortage of flu vaccine after contamination problems prevented a major supplier in England from shipping.
Canada regulates drug prices as part of its national health care system, while the market dictates pricing in the United States. Many popular medications for chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol can be bought in Canada at less than half the U.S. price.
Earlier this month, Illinois and Wisconsin started state-sponsored programs to help residents buy cheaper prescription drugs from both Europe and Canada. Several states, seeing the potential for huge savings in the costs of insuring employees, have Web sites designed to help citizens buy Canadian medications. Also, visitors to Canada can buy as much as three months of medication in Canada for personal use with a U.S. prescription.
U.S.-based drug makers Pfizer Inc., GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP and Wyeth have cut supplies to some Canadian pharmacies when they suspected orders were too large for the Canadian market and were being sold to Americans.
Lothar Dueck, president of the Coalition for Manitoba Pharmacy, said he is under restrictions by U.S. drug companies and often must call colleagues to scrounge enough medicine to fill prescriptions for his customers in Vita near the U.S. border. Recently he ran out of Imuran, a drug used to treat immune system deficiencies such as lupus.
"I don't want to see our health system decimated by forcing Canadians to compete with Americans for our drug supply," Dueck said.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration opposes commercial prescription drug imports, arguing that it cannot vouch for their safety.
Binder said Canada's reputation could be on the line if drugs imported from countries where quality cannot be verified, such as China, Iran, India and Thailand, cause problems after being resold to the United States.
Jeff Poston, executive director of the Canadian Pharmacists Association, also expressed concerns about safety.
"Drugs are a therapy; they should not be treated as a commodity to be bought from anywhere in the world at the cheapest price," Poston said.
Binder objected to the argument of U.S. drug companies that cheaper Canadian drugs don't help pay for expensive research and development.
"Most R&D is started by the government and when it becomes lucrative, the patent rights are bought up by the drug companies," Binder said.
Chuck Cruden of the Manitoba Society of Seniors said Canadian doctors should be treating Canadians instead of selling their signatures to "co-sign" American prescriptions.
"The United States is the richest country in the world," Cruden said. "They are more than capable of solving this problem on their own. Canada is too small and our drug supply is too small to solve America's problem."


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In the Pog Biz
Seven-year-old runs his own business.
By Catherine Cluett
While most seven-year-olds are lucky to have pocket change from their allowance, Gus Lodise is already out in the business world making his own money. At age five, Gus began selling his paintings to family and friends, and to raise funds for his school, Kilohana Elementary. Now, two years later, he has expanded his entrepreneurial endeavors to marketing pogs, a game played with small, colorful disks that originated in Hawaii in the 1920s and is still popular with island youngsters today.
Gus went into the pog business just three weeks ago, and as of last week, Gus said he had already sold 33 bags of pogs for $3 per bag. Sets of 100 pog pieces come in a bag. He said he buys the pogs in bags of 8000, then sorts and packages them for sale.
“We have now sold Gus's pog packages to customers on Molokai, as well as Maui and the Big Island via mail order,” said Kimberly Svetin, General Manager at Kamo`i Snack-n-Go. Kamo`i, along with Outpost Natural Foods, are the two local venders of Gus’s “Ninja Pogs.” Svetin said Gus is the youngest vendor in Kamo`i’s 14-year history.
Business runs in Gus’s family. His parents, Monica Flores and Genesis Lodise, are owners of a web design business. Flores said they taught their son the basics of invoicing, inventory, start-up capital and other business practices.
“Our hope is to pass on those skills so he is never dependant on one stream of income,” said Flores.
They also explained the importance of keeping records and professional communication with customers and bankers. Flores said learning such phrases as “it’s a pleasure doing business with you” will serve you well throughout your life.
“The biggest challenge is getting used to people,” explained Gus. But this ingenious kid seems to be having no trouble.
Gus has his own bank account, to which all his profit is deposited. Family members loaned him start-up capital, and Gus said he paid his parents back last week and is now beginning to collect profit from his business. He accepts cash, checks, Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover.
He is also already using his knowledge of business to increase his sales by offering discounts. Gus said his friends share his interest in pogs, so he gives them a $1 discount per package.
“There’s always something you can offer,” Flores advised her son and others. “Just think of what you can do and someone who might want it.”
And while Gus said making money is one of the best things about going into business, Gus has already thought about serving the community, too. He has donated paintings to two charity auctions to raise money for Kilohana Elementary School.
“Our hope is that he can use his knowledge and skills to give back to community,” said Flores.
You can reach Gus with questions or to place an order at 877-836-5105 ext. 7 or visit his website, www.islandboyart.com.