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Each year, March marks the start of Girl Scout cookie booth season. In a typical year, you’d be greeted by a smiling Brownie or Junior at your neighborhood grocery store asking, “Would you like to buy some Girl Scout cookies?”
But as we approach the second year of the coronavirus pandemic, with masks and social distancing, local Girl Scout troops have been forced to adapt to a different world.
“There's been a ton of innovation this year from girls,” says Emily Ayers, marketing coordinator for Girl Scouts of Northeast Ohio. “A lot of the tactics that girls are using this year are things that they used last year, too. Now they're kind of perfecting them.”
Abigail Gold, of Troop 71672, makes a socially-distanced cookie delivery.Since some chain stores declined to host cookie booth sites this year because of the pandemic, girls and their caregivers contacted locations in their communities to set up their own booths.
“Many [cookie sales] will pop up in schools, churches, or community centers where girls are going to be doing socially-distanced, safe cookie booth drive-throughs,” says Ayers.
Troop 71672 is a special interest “travel troop,” open to girls in fifth through 12th grades from communities around Northeast Ohio. The troop focuses on travel—regional, domestic, and international trips—and the profits from cookie sales fund their journeys.
“I want travel opportunities to be open to girls from every socio-economic background,” says troop leader Kimberlee Ullner. And they have big goals. Last year, the troop sold about 6,000 boxes.
This March, the girls in Troop 71672 will be hosting outdoor cookie booths at Zagara's Marketplace in Cleveland Heights (March 12-14 and 19-21) and a drive-through booth at Huntington Bank in Pepper Pike (March 12-14). “Everybody will be masked. We're going to have a laminated menu that we can sanitize before it goes to the next person,” says Ullner. “We’re trying to make it as COVID-friendly as possible.”
Service Unit 707, representing troops in Fairview Park, set up multiple drive-through booths around the city. Girl Scouts will be at Gilles-Sweet Elementary School and New Hope Church every Saturday and Sunday this month starting Saturday, March 13. “In Fairview Park, we're super lucky—we have so much community support around Girl Scout cookies,” says service unit director Heather Renz. “Last year, we donated cookies to workers at Target and the hospitals here.”
Girl Scout cookies are a big business. According to Girl Scouts of Northeast Ohio, in 2020 local girls sold over 2.3 million boxes of cookies. Although many area troops report their in-person sales are down this season, online sales have improved.
A troop of first and second graders based in Lakewood made door hangers with QR codes linked to each girl’s Digital Cookie website. “I bought the template from someone on Etsy,” says troop leader Cathy Livingston. “One girl put them all over her neighborhood and got an extra 25 sales.”
With the pandemic, Girl Scouts has expanded its online offering as well. You can download the Cookie Finder app for Android or iOS and get updates on cookie booths in your area. Or visit the Girls Scout cookie page and enter your ZIP code to find booths near you or buy cookies online from a local Girl Scout troop without ever having to leave the house.
In the end, at least 80 cents of every box sold stays with the troop, which motivates girls to keep innovating to reach their goals. “I do believe that we teach the girls really good skills,” says Ullner. “These are wonderful opportunities, and I want to make sure that we have those for the girls. That's why we sell cookies.”


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Waterloo’s Thalmic Labs has begun shipping the production version of its hardware to pre-order customers already, and now the company is gearing up for its full-scale enterprise play with the help of some partner companies and with development efforts aimed at specific devices, including Google Glass. Myo’s potential for the enterprise could be much greater than its initial appeal for ordinary consumer users, as keeping hands clear of devices is a key advantage in many industrial and medical fields.
The partnerships include companies working in various different fields, including Augmedix, which uses Google Glass to offer physicians a Google Glass-based patient information and documentation system. Myo makes it possible to use and navigate this system without having to speak to Google Glass, or to reach up and use the touch-based input device on the arm of the wearable computer.
A team-up with APX Labs will see Myo integrated with software built specifically for Glass and the Espon Moverio, among other smartglass designs, for use in work at wind mills, refineries, hydro plants and other field locations where ti’s key to be able to check out and respond to live feedback and troubleshooting documents while keeping your hands free at the same time.
Another application of Glass-based tech Myo is announcing today is a partnership with Bridgit, which makes the gesture control armband compatible with the company’s Closeout deficiency management software. This makes it possible to track deficiencies at construction sites in real-time using Google Glass, giving project managers conducting inspections a way to instantly assign needed projects to subcontractors using gesture input as they do their walkthroughs.
Finally, Thalmic is working with Recon Instruments to build support for its Jet wearable heads-up display and computer to let it control and navigate the device. This could lead to applications both in extreme sports, and in industrial situations where having information about the surrounding environment displayed in real-time, with navigable menus exposing additional data where necessary.
Thalmic’s big enterprise push is timely; the company has just started sending out its first consumer devices, but as with any big new launch of hardware intended for use in everyday computing, there’s a chance that it won’t find the market that open to change. In case of that eventuality, the startup will need to look elsewhere to move inventory and drive revenue, and previous players in this category, including Leap Motion, have found willing partners in industry and in enterprise. It’s a less challenging market in many regards, especially since it’s more tolerant of operational quirks and steep learning curves than is the average consumer.

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Dean Hall hails from New Zealand. More than just a backdrop to the Lord of the Rings movies, New Zealand has all sorts of industries. Now the designer of the DayZ mod and of the upcoming Ion is facing a little trouble at home.
Dean has founded his own gaming company, Rocketwerkz, and naturally wanted to raise the profile of his home country and build up a studio in New Zealand.
As Stuff.co.nz put it:
High-profile gaming developer Dean Hall was shaking hands with the CEO of Microsoft, just as Immigration New Zealand contacted his company asking if it was financially viable.
The creator of DayZ, a zombie survival game that has sold more than 3 million copies and made more than $137.7m, had been planning a $20m gaming studio in Dunedin.
After months of wrangling with Immigration NZ, Hall may now base that business offshore.
The argument is revolving around Immigration NZ and their requests or demands that he pay graduates moving to New Zealand to help build games considerably more than what locals would get and more than the industry standard. It’s one of those legal wrangles that seems insane yet is causing no end of trouble for the developer.
His noble attempts at bringing talent into New Zealand while bringing money and attention there as well may well have hit the only thing more unyielding than stone. Government bureaucracy. On the bright side, we’ve all learned that a stoush is a fight.
For more about the upcoming game Ion, head here.
Source: Stuff.co.nzRelated: DayZ, Developer, Industry, Ion


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China will encourage private equity funds to participate in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to drive the healthy development of the country's fund sector, the top securities regulator said Monday.
China's special administrative region of Macao is expected to attract up to 35 million visitors this year. But with only a regional airport many tourists have to travel through Hong Kong or elsewhere on China's mainland. The new 55-kilometer-long Hong Kong-Zhuhai bridge and tunnel connecting the tourist hotspot to Hong Kong and Zhuhai is about to change all of that.
Businesses in Hong Kong are already eyeing the opportunities the bridge could bring.
Shanghai is excited for the CIIE. During the six-day expo, over 2,800 enterprises from 130 countries and regions will gather here to display and sell their products and services. How to better serve them has become a big challenge for the host city.
China's central bank continued to inject funds into the market on Tuesday to maintain liquidity. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) conducted 120 billion yuan (about 17.3 billion U.S.
A total of 97 Chinese companies have been punished and listed on the dishonesty list due to statistical data fraud since 2017, after the government intensified inspections on statistical law enforcement.
Travel website Mafengwo filed a defamation lawsuit on Monday after it was accused of copying reviews from competitors and fabricating 85 percent of reviews on its website.
More favorable policies are expected to be launched to underpin China's private sector in its time of need, analysts said on Monday.
The Chinese online literature market has risen rapidly in recent years thanks to wider internet access and the mass availability of smartphones.
Pledged-share risks are unlikely to spread as a systemic danger in China, as a result of government-backed funding support and market expectations of more supportive measures.
China is likely to revise laws to make it easier for listed companies to buy back shares, another policy measure to shore up market confidence after stocks declined more than 20 percent so far this year.
A new e-commerce law that takes effect on January 1 will require Chinese online traders to pay taxes on their transactions, bringing a shock to the sector but allowing it to develop in a sounder fashion, an expert said.
China's top legislature is considering a change of the intellectual property right (IPR) appeals procedure, which would hand the Supreme People's Court (SPC) cases that require more expertise.
YouTube has pledged investment to support EduTubers through the Learning Fund and plans to fund content from independent creators, traditional news sources and educational organizations to broaden its content offering.
After going through ups and downs in the past two years, the virtual reality market seems to be near the tipping point, with tech heavyweights and startups all making progress on hardware and software.
The first-ever China International Import Expo (CIIE), scheduled for Nov. 5-10 in Shanghai, will see the participation of over 130 countries and regions, and more than 2,800 companies. Here are some facts and figures about the event.
Chinese lawmakers began reviewing a draft amendment to the Drug Administration Law on Monday, which toughens penalties for offenders as the country cracks down on counterfeit drugs and better regulates the industry.
The government will do more to resolve the concerns of businesses identified during the State Council inspection tours, ensure full delivery of all pro-business policies and build a national Internet Plus regulation system to make government regulation smarter, more standardized and better targeted, as the State Council's executive meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang decided on Monday.
Chinese stocks surged Monday after policy makers moved to boost confidence in the stock market and pledged to enact measures to ensure its healthy development.
Yu Daqin, hailing from a family in a village of Guizhou province, wore clothing made by her mother when she was young, but this meant the occasional shortage of new clothes. Now, with a clothing business earning her more than five million yuan ($721,390) each year, she has solved her wardrobe problems — and many others'.
Nagoya-based Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. said Monday that multinational aerospace and transportation company Bombardier Inc.ANA Holdings Inc., one of the MRJ's first customers, has been told it will receive its order for the jet two years later than expected in 2020.
The original allegations claimed that Mafengwo employed people to copy and paste reviews, comments and blogs from rival online travel and leisure platforms like Ctrip and Meituan Dianping.
The Japanese government has decided to issue Facebook Inc. an order to improve the way it protects its users' personal data, sources in the government said Monday.
Online travel service platform Mafengwo denied that it had used copied user-generated content on its site after criticism in a social media report went viral.
The Beijing Real Estate Intermediary Association said it will hold companies accountable that jack up house rents despite pledges as an investigation is underway.
Mutual insurance product “Xianghubao”, jointly launched by Trust Mutual Life and Alibaba’s financial arm Ant Financial, has become hugely popular in China, attracting 3.3 million policy holders in three days.
Travel review website Mafengwo has come under fire after it was accused of copying users' comments from online travel operators or lifestyle services platforms by a we media on WeChat.
Mafengwo, a major SNS travel website in China, denied the accusation of "copying data from its competitors' database" on Monday, saying it is an organized attack.
China's central bank injected 120 billion yuan (about 17.3 billion U.S. dollars) of funds into the market on Monday through reverse repos to maintain liquidity.


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Chaotic scenes hit the narrow streets of Yuen Long Sunday as the clashes marred the latest protest against mainland traders. Police used pepper spray to break up clashes as the 200 or so protesters and opponents exchanged foul-mouthed insults. (Cover photo: SCMP's David Wong)
Tens of thousands of people marched in central Moscow on Sunday to honour the memory of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, who was gunned down near the Kremlin late on Friday in the highest-profile assassination of Vladimir Putin's rule. (Cover photo: Reuters)
In a head-on challenge to Apple's popular iPhone 6 which was released last year, Samsung came out fighting on Sunday with the Galaxy S6, a smartphone with a touchscreen that curves around the edges and has a wireless charger.
They sell everything from noodle soup to sex toys, but Bangkok's famed street hawkers are now facing a crackdown as authorities in the fast-growing metropolis struggle to make space for pedestrians on the crowded pavements.


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- Is Maguire Right? Are the Bullion Banks On the Ropes? April 23, 2017 The Doc
- Explosive Moves in the Wings? April 23, 2017 The Doc
- Henry Gruver’s Incredible Vision Of Russian Submarines Launching Nuclear Missiles At The United States April 23, 2017 The Doc
- Gold Splits from Silver, Ratio Gains Before French Election But GLD Shrinks, 'Safe Haven' Demand Lacking April 21, 2017 Adrian Ash
- GLD Adds Most Gold Bars Since Sept. But Price Caught in 'Tug of War' April 20, 2017 Adrian Ash
- Gold Bullion Slips Again from 'MAJOR' Hurdle of 2011 Downtrend as IMF Raises Global GDP Forecasts April 19, 2017 Adrian Ash
Gold in Gadgets ‘worth more than £10bn’
Each year an estimated 320 tons of gold is used worldwide to make mobile phones, laptops and other electronic devices, it has been disclosed.
The total value of all the gadget gold is more than £10 billion, yet only around 15% of it is ever recovered from electronic waste, a meeting was told.
In rich and poor countries alike, at least 85% of the e-waste gold is lost, analysts said.
Manufacturing electronic products also consumes more than 7,500 tons of silver per year, experts said at the E-Waste Academy meeting in Accra, Ghana.
“More sustainable consumption patterns and material recycling are essential if consumers are to continue to enjoy high-tech devices that support everything from modern communications to smart transport, intelligent buildings and more,” said Luis Neves, chairman of the Global e-sustainability Initiative (GeSI).
Electronic waste now contains precious metal “deposits” 40 to 50 times richer than ores mined from the ground, the meeting heard.
The amount of gold taken up by gadgets was said to be rising at a fast rate in tandem with new developments such as tablet computers.
In 2001, they used up 5.3% of the world’s supply, around 197 tons. By last year, this figure had risen to 7.7%, or 320 tons – equal to 2.5% of the US gold reserves in Fort Knox and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
Making high-tech devices required gold and silver together worth £13.5 billion – equal to the Gross Domestic Product of El Salvador.
Alexis Vandendaelen, of Belgium-based Umicore Precious Metals Refining, said: “Rather than looking at e-waste as a burden, we need to see it as an opportunity.”


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After a shaky start of the announcement of the Xbox One, Microsoft is looking to win the hearts of gamers with a string of announcements of launch games set to drop this fall.
After announcing the upcoming Xbox One, Microsoft declared the console was more than just a gaming console but a console for everything entertainment. They focused more on Sports, TV, Kinect and smartglass, but at yesterdays E3 they came out swinging with an array of upcoming games.
Starting out with a preview of Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain, following up with Dead Rising 3 and finishing up with a surprising announcement of Halo 5 which is set for a 2014 release.
Let’s take a look at some of the great games being launched this fall for the Xbox One.


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Carcross Co-Named Global Mountain Bike Destination by Outside Magazine
The 2013 Travel Edition of Outside magazine had an unexpected surprise in store for Yukoners: Carcross and Whitehorse have been named Global Mountain Bike Destination of the Year.
We didn’t even know we were being considered”, said Justin Ferbey with Carcross/Tagish First Nation, which has developed over 65 kilometres of trails on its lands. “To go from being a small Yukon community with virtually no mountain bike trails at all to being designated a global destination by Outside in the space of eight years is incredible”, he said. “It validates our vision to return to our trail-based roots and the hard work of our youth, who build these trails”.
For Whitehorse-based mountain bike tour operator Boréale Mountain Biking, the news validates what they’ve known for years: the Yukon is a mountain bike destination like none other. “The Yukon is a gem, with amazing trails, perfect conditions, and the most hospitable, welcoming people imaginable”, said Marsha Cameron, Boréale owner. “That magic combination is what keeps our guests coming back year after year and caught the notice of the Outside editorial staff.”
With any luck, this latest accolade will see many more visitors discovering, and returning to, the Yukon’s mountain bike paradise for years to come.
Yukon Up Against Whistler and the North Shore in a David vs. Goliath Battle to Win $10,0000 for Trails
MEC contest pits CMBC and Carcross against mountain bike world heavyweights.
Mt. Hero Gets IMBA "Epic" Designation
The Epic designation is a term coined to describe challenging backcountry excursions worth ticking off your bucket list.


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Neat Corporation, the team behind Budget Cuts (2018), revealed today that they’re currently porting the VR stealth adventure to PSVR. Moreover, if everything goes well, it could be coming to Oculus Quest too.
right now we are working on a PSVR version of budget cuts – quest will require even more of a performance optimization but we will look into it once we are "done" with PSVR!
— Neat Corporation (@NeatCorp) January 30, 2019
Budget Cuts puts you in the hum-drum world of an endless office complex. Just as you’re about to die of boredom, a fax comes through that warns you of impending doom. All of the humans in the office have been mysteriously replaced by worker drones, and it’s your job to get past the deadly security bots with only throwing knives and your trusty portal-style teleportation gun to figure out what happened.
While we genuinely liked the game, unfortunately it was plagued with performance issues early on which actually forced the team to reschedule launch well after reviews were already out in a bid to smooth over some of the game-breaking bugs that made their way to some reviewers.
That said, Neat Corp has plenty to do to get the physics-based stealth game in shape for the decreased graphical and CPU power of the PS4. Another hurdle to jump over will invariably be the PS Camera’s smaller, front-facing tracking volume that will no doubt require users to make heavy use of snap-turning locomotion in addition to the game’s native teleportation scheme.
Whatever the case may be, we’re hoping it does well enough to bring the game to Oculus Quest, because it’s clear a virtually unlimited tracking volume would be an insane addition to a game that gets you dodging, ducking, and cowering under virtual desks for your life.


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An ex-trainer exposes the lies the dolphin industry tells to make tourists content with animal cruelty – and to make money
Mother pigs will be housed in sow stalls for five years longer than expected, but the industry is working to phase out these cruel confinement systems.
Wildlife in traditional medicine – why changing consumer behaviour is critical and how a new online tool might help
While thousands of animals are still suffering needlessly for the sake of traditional medicine, our research shows that the majority of consumers are willing...
US allows aquarium to import Marineland belugas but prohibits breeding and training them for shows. Canadian approval is still needed.
Under Bill S-203, cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) can only be imported and exported with a permit approved by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans...


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No big surprise here: Business Insider is reporting that Dave Chappelle’s latest stand-up special, released exclusively on Netflix, is the streaming networks’ most watched comedy offering of all time – and that’s saying a lot, for a site that’s released 17 original specials in the first quarter of 2017 alone.
In a letter to its shareholders, this week Netflix announced that Chappelle’s recent special, Collection 1 – the first of three he’s contracted to deliver to the network – has already become its most popular original comedy release, ever. Netflix also noted that Ged Elmaleh’s Gad Gone Wild was a breakout international hit.
Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos says that the growing network’s interest in comedy isn’t new. “[A]ctually, back in our early original content days and the red envelope entertainment, it’s all we did was produce original stand-up comedy and acquired documentaries and foreign language films,” he says. “Always had good luck with it, just on a very small scale. And the format lends itself really well to what we’re doing… it’s uncensored, it’s commercial free, and that allows for a lot of creative freedom. And the fan base for these folks is very big.”
And Netflix’s growing number of specials highlighting younger performers alongside it’s A-listers like Jim Norton and Louis CK is helping grow that fan base – one of the many comedy projects they’ve got coming up this year is The Stand-Ups, a series of half hours from comics including Dan Soder, Nate Bargatze, and Fortune Feimster.


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The title “Hogwarts Legacy” from the Harry Potter franchise has surpassed 24 million copies in total sales, as reported by Variety. This significant milestone was achieved less than a year after its initial launch on February 10th, 2023. David Haddad, the head of Warner Bros Interactive, emphasized the company’s commitment to strengthening its intellectual property through the gaming sector.
Haddad highlighted the importance of franchises, saying, “There’s a unique and important role game have in keeping our franchises relevant, resonant and exciting because there’s plenty of fans and plenty of people consuming content where games are their starting point.”
Warner Bros had previously expressed its strategy of transforming significant gaming intellectual properties into live-service titles, indicating a strategic focus on these franchises’ continued engagement and expansion.


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Motorola launched the Moto G100 this year as the strongest-ever Moto G series smartphone. The device was basically a rebranded Motorola Edge S with Qualcomm Snapdragon 870 SoC and a 108 MP camera setup. Now, the company is preparing the terrain for the Moto G200 which will replace the G100 as the company’s next flagship killer smartphone. In fact, the device seems to be the rumored Qualcomm Snapdragon 888+ powered smartphone. Today, the handset has visited the TENAA certification, confirming some of its specifications in the process.
The Chinese certification agency confirms some of the details about the Moto G200 processing powers as well as some of its features and specs. The first and most important detail is that the phone indeed comes with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888+ SoC. It boosts the prime core to 3.0 GHz. Worth noting that this chipset isn’t available in many smartphones even at this point and this is due to the crisis in the semiconductor industry.
Moto G200 specifications
Besides the almighty Snapdragon chipset, the phone has a 6.78-inch LCD screen with support for a 120 Hz refresh rate. We can see where Motorola is cutting some corners as most flagships bring AMOLED displays nowadays. Anyway, some users will not mind an LCD if the price is low. The device has a punch-hole at the top. One time that this is an LCD, the device will not bring an in-display fingerprint scanner. Instead, it will be likely placed on the side and will double as a power button.
The Moto G200 will draw its powers from a 4,700 mAh battery. This battery is expected to charge via at least 30 W fast charging. This is almost twice less what the Motorola Edge 30 is rumored to come with – 68W. However, once again, we need to remember that the Moto G200 will cut all the corners it can to make the Snapdragon 888+ more accessible. The device will weigh 202 grams and is 8.8 mm thick.
The Moto G200 will have a triple-camera setup on the back. The primary camera is a 108 MP unit, the secondary is a 13 MP ultrawide module. The third and final sensor is a simple 2 MP depth sensor snapper. Interestingly, the ultrawide camera will also be used for macro images. As per the rumors, the handset will launch in two colorways – Blue and Grey. It is expected to go official in China as Moto S30 or Motorola Edge S30.


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Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding's second-quarter revenue growth is likely to have slumped to half the year-earlier rate, undermining hopes consumer spending will temper a slowdown in the world's second-biggest economy.
Beijing is hoping that private consumption will pick up the slack as exports fall and it tries to rebalance the economy - now heading for its slowest full-year growth in 25 years - away from a reliance on trade and government spending.
But Alibaba's second-quarter results due on Tuesday are expected to cloud the increasingly grim outlook for consumer spending, which accounted for 60 percent of China's economic growth in the first half of 2015.
"Much focus will be paid to the deceleration in volume growth Alibaba guided to mid-quarter. Investors will be looking to see if Alibaba can improve take rates to make up for this slowdown," Wedbush Securities analyst Gil Luria said.


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Robesonia-based Associated Wholesalers Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Tuesday, asking a federal judge to approve a plan that includes the sale of the company to a New Hampshire wholesaler or another higher bidder.
The likely buyer, C&S Wholesale Grocers, Keene, N.H., is the largest wholesale grocery-supply company in the U.S. It operates a warehouse in Blandon.
AWI, its affiliates and its subsidiary, New Jersey-based White Rose, are expected to continue operating during the sale process. The focus remains on serving customers, said Matthew R. Saunders, AWI president and CEO.
In its bankruptcy filing, the company said a sale and the cash it would generate were urgently needed.
“Without an immediate infusion of working capital, (AWI) will have no choice but to liquidate (its) assets immediately in a ‘free fall’ bankruptcy,” wrote Douglas A. Booth, AWI’s chief restructuring officer.
The purchase price for any deal was not disclosed.
AWI serves 800 supermarkets, specialty stores and convenience stores with groceries and general merchandise. The stores are located in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio.
AWI owns two distribution facilities in Pennsylvania: an 800,000-square-foot facility in Robesonia with its headquarters; a 200,000-square-foot distribution center is in York County. AWI employs 820 people in Robesonia, making it among the top 20 employers in the county. Teamsters Local 429 represents 459 AWI employees, including warehouse workers, truck drivers, truck mechanics and maintenance department workers.
It’s not clear if any jobs would be lost in any deal.
“We will make sure we protect the workers’ rights and jobs,” said Kevin Bolig, business agent with Teamsters Local 429.
AWI and its affiliates owe $72 million to more than 200 creditors, according to bankruptcy documents.
With $1.1 billion in annual revenue, AWI had an almost $4 million decrease in net income between 2012 and 2013. In 2012, AWI posted $22.9 million net income while in 2013 it was $19 million.
In June, the company said it was looking for a buyer for White Rose, an independent wholesale food distributor that AWI acquired in 2006. Recently, the company said it was evaluating offers from potential buyers to acquire the assets of both AWI and its White Rose subsidiary.
Rick Cohen, chairman and CEO of C&S, said acquiring AWI and White Rose would enhance C&S’ ability to serve independent grocers.
Contact Lisa Scheid: 610-371-5080 or firstname.lastname@example.org.
Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing for AWI
Affidavit in support of AWI bankruptcy filing


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Capcom has just announced that its popular survival horror video game, Resident Evil Village, has reached an impressive new milestone, selling over 8 million copies since its initial release in 2021.
This achievement was revealed via the company’s Twitter account: “Resident Evil Village has just surpassed 8 million units sold! We owe this to all of our amazing fans. Thank you so much!”
Resident Evil Village has just surpassed 8 million units sold! We owe this to all of our amazing fans. Thank you so much!
— Capcom Dev 1 (@dev1_official) June 8, 2023
The game, a direct sequel to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, has been widely praised for its haunting narrative, captivating graphics, and innovative gameplay. With its latest sales achievement, it continues to solidify the Resident Evil franchise as a heavyweight in the gaming industry.
Resident Evil Village’s sales success isn’t Capcom’s only recent triumph. The company has also celebrated significant success with its Street Fighter 6 release, which accrued over a million players in three days.
Last month, the Japanese publisher revealed that their overall game sales had hit an all-time high, with 41 million units shipped within a fiscal year. This sales boom underlines Capcom’s strong foothold in the gaming market and the consistently high demand for its diverse portfolio of games.


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LED Outfitters Announces Winter Plow Light Sale
March 07, 2013 (PRLEAP.COM) Business NewsLos Angeles, CA - LED outfitters, the leader in emergency lights and light bars, has announced a limited-time winter sale of plow lights. As winter bears on all across the United States, plow lights are more important now than any other time of the year. Customers can purchase lights at a discounted price to ensure the safety of their vehicles while plowing.
Plow lights are essential to the safety of everyone on the road during the snow season. Without LED light bars attached to the plow, other drivers on the road would not be able to see an oncoming plow. Discounted prices make it easier for plow professionals to achieve the level of safety they need on the road in the dangerous winter weather.
In addition to quality plow lights, LED Outfitters offers a wide range of emergency vehicle equipment. On the site, customers can find light bars, mini light bars, dash lights, surface mounts, grill lights, sirens, PA systems, speakers, strobe kits, and escort lights. Based on recent expansion, customers might even be able to find more soon. "We are continuing to expand our product line and look forward to introducing several new items in the near future," said an LED Outfitters spokesman. "We are quickly becoming the primary source for Emergency Vehicle Lighting all over the United States."
About LED Outfitters
By focusing on customer service and quality, LED Outfitters has been a leader in the distribution and sales of emergency LED lights since 2002. They offer low prices on all of their products, a friendly sales team to answer any questions, and a high level of quality that is applied to each of their products. They are a quality-driven, customer service oriented company. LED Outfitters is a one-stop shop for all public safety professionals. For additional information please visit, www.ledoutfitters.com.


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Sega of America has appointed former Electronic Arts veteran Linda Chaplin to lead the company’s mobile gaming expansion in North America reports GameDaily today. Sega is looking to “become a serious player” in the mobile arena in the West, as the company already has a large mobile gaming business in Japan and Korea. In the last year Sega’s console software business has shifted toward a greater focus on Western markets. Chaplin will serve as vice president of Sega Mobile, and oversee operations for North, Central and South America, including the management of operations that were previously directed by Sega of Japan. These include product development, sales and marketing of existing and future mobile content.
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Colin McRae: Dirt 2 PC will support DirectX 11 - Update: Official Release Date
Codemasters just gave word that the Games for Windows Live version of Colin McRae: Dirt 2 will support the forthcoming DirectX 11.
Via press release Codemasters announced that Colin McRae: Dirt 2 will offer DirectX 11 features that will deliver an enhanced performance. The new API is supposed to be published later the year. Windows 7 which will support DirectX 11, too, is scheduled for release on October, 22 and the first DX 11 hardware is also expected to hit the markets in Q3 or Q4 2009.
Update July 7, 2009
After publishing the press release yesterday the question aroused if the attached pictures are actual DirectX 11 screenshots. According to Matthias Mirlach, Codemasters Product Manager, the two screenshots do not present the DirectX 11 version of the Dirt 2 Ego Engine. They are DX10 pictures only.
Update: July 16, 2009
Today Codemasters officially announce that Colin McRae: Dirt 2 will be released in Europe on September 10, 2009. The game is based on the third generation of the Ego Engine and will be coming to Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, Nintendo DS and PSP. The Games for Windows Live version with DirectX 11 support will be following later this year.
Codemasters Press Release:
COLIN McRAE™: DiRT™ 2 GAMES FOR WINDOWS® LIVE EDITION TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF DIRECTX® 11 TECHNOLOGIES.
Codemasters® today announced that the Games For Windows® LIVE edition of Colin McRae: DiRT 2, the thrilling and stylish sequel to the award-winning off-road racer, will support the wealth of new performance enhancing features that will be available in DirectX 11.
With DirectX 11 hardware expected to ship in the second half of 2009, and DirectX 11 coming to home computers with the release of Microsoft Windows 7 on October 22, 2009, Codemasters also announced that the Games For Windows® LIVE edition of Colin McRae: DiRT 2 will benefit from an extended development program to take advantage of DirectX 11 and is now scheduled to be published in December 2009.
"While the console editions of Colin McRae: DiRT 2 will retain their September ship date, we believe that the DirectX 11 feature set is too compelling to ignore, especially considering how much more it can add to the visual experience for PC gamers,” said Bryan Marshall, chief technical officer, Codemasters. "As a leader in digital racing entertainment, we are staying ahead of the pack by immediately taking advantage of key new technologies such as hardware tessellation, multi-threading and Shader Model 5.0 to deliver the most realistic, immersive and exhilarating racing experiences in the business. The fusion of DirectX 11 with Codemasters' EGO™ Engine will raise the technical bar considerably in the racing genre.”
With the introduction of Microsoft Windows 7, DirectX 11 will be made available both as part of the operating system and as a downloadable update to Windows Vista. Codemasters intends to immediately take advantage of DirectX 11 features that add to the realism of the racing environment. Hardware tessellation will further improve the appearance of water and other surfaces as well as crowd animations.
The shader performance of Shader Model 5.0 (SM 5.0) will aid in creating an even richer 3D experience, enhancing key image quality parameters such as depth of field, ambient occlusion and shadows. These DirectX 11 features, and many others, will add the horsepower needed to improve performance.
"We expect Codemasters' early move to DirectX 11 to place them in a leadership position in developing the next generation of PC games and simulations,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president, AMD Products Group. "To aid in transitioning to DirectX 11, AMD is providing Codemasters with access to our software engineering expertise in DirectX 11 technologies such as tessellation and shader modelling. DirectX 11 has all of the ingredients needed to take PC gaming to a new level of realism by giving developers tools to effectively utilize the multi-CPU, multi-GPU systems now available to players.”
Colin McRae: DiRT 2 is being turbocharged for Games For Windows® LIVE supporting DirectX 11 and is set to ship this December. Editions for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft®, the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, Wii™, Nintendo DS™ and PSP® (PlayStation®Portable) system are scheduled to launch in September. For the latest videos and information, powerslide over to www.dirt2game.com.


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Through its Perishable
Donations Partnership, Kroger aims to help divert food that would otherwise go to waste to help feed the nearly 49 million people in the U.
goods demands specialized knowledge, reliability and constant high quality," states Diederick de Vroet, Head of Global Ocean Freight, Schenker AG.
Kuehne + Nagel has agreed to take over the client list of Perishables
International Transportation Inc.
With convenience store sales in the perishable
grocery category (fruits, vegetables, packaged deli and cheese) growing 12.
Earlier, in the Railway Budget 2009-10 speech, Mamata had announced that Railways would encourage creation of facilities of cold storage and temperature controlled perishable
He introduced reusable plastic containers (RPCs) to the United States produce industry, and was a leading advocate of RFID and other technologies to increase perishable
supply chain efficiencies.
In addition, A&P will be able to incorporate IRI syndicated store data with IRI Perishable
Service to get a better picture of its total in-store performance.
The nationwide CPI for 2003, excluding perishables
, came to 98.
And these perishable
wishes are especially important.
While income growth and some policy measures to liberalize trade are key determinants in the rise of perishable
shipments, advances in transportation technology are equally important.
Sri Lankas top perishable
exports are fruits and vegetables, fish, seafood, foliage, and cut flowers.
category] is a very robust business opportunity Sales have consistently grown doubledigits year over year.
based QLM Consulting, identified the creation of a perishable
industry traceback taskforce as the first item on their ambitious start-up agenda.


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Local hoteliers expect occupancy rates to surpass pre-pandemic levels during the week following National Day on 1 October. The so-called “golden week” is a holiday in mainland China, Macao’s biggest source of visitors by far.
A local media report quoted Luis Heredia, president of the Macau Hotel Association, as saying that the association was “very optimistic, hoping that all conditions are favourable for travel.”
Wong Suk Yan, the association’s chair, added that Cotai hotels look set for full occupancy, with rates on the peninsula reaching 70 percent.
[See more: Visitor arrivals surged in August]
The city saw 3,221,691 visitors arrive in August – a month-to-month increase of nearly 17 percent and the first time the 3 million mark had been breached since the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Tourism officials say golden week arrivals could average out to more than 100,000 visitors a day.
The holiday is expected to be a boon for casinos, with revenue estimates put at 850 million patacas per day during the period.


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This week’s Auto Industry News has a few things to say about whatever a little birdie may or may not have told you. There are talks of a Baby Bronco companion to Ford’s resurrected model. We’ll spill the tea on the new Aston Martin DBX, as well as meet the face of Maserati in North American. Plus, there is a vicious SEMA build that you’ll consider selling the farm for!
Aston Martin DBX Confirmed
Jeep may have shook up end-of-the-year announcements in a big way with several well-timed Gladiator leaks. But they aren’t the only ones with a few tricks up their sleeves. This past week, Aston Martin confirmed the name and release of the DBX— the company’s first ever SUV. Based on a well-received 2015 concept vehicle, a rebodied four-door prototype is now in development.
The shared photos reveal the DBX has since upped its ground clearance, riding on an all-new platform. And according to the press release, while the model will “perform with the verve and poise of a true Aston Martin,” the DBX will also extend its “dynamic envelope” (read: expensive) to include off-road and towing capabilities. Engine wise, details are still unknown. However, this will be the first model built at the automaker’s new St. Athan production facility in Wales. We anticipate the flagship product to showcase that new technology in the form of an electric drivetrain at some point in time. Whether we’ll also see the AMG-sourced V8 or the V-12 worthy of the segment-competing 650-hp Lamborghini Urus, is a mystery.
The Aston Martin DBX is set to hit the market in late 2019, specifically the fourth quarter. Just in case you were already thinking about next year’s Christmas gifts for the performance geek who has everything.
Will the upcoming Ford Bronco debut alongside a mini-me? This is one of the rumor mill’s latest headlines, but there’s reason to keep an ear on it. SEMA was jam-packed this year (and we’re still feeling the aftershock), but as news of leaks circulated and died off, the mumbles of a miniature Bronco (not this one), held strong.
Initially teased in March, the baby Bronco rumor got new life after Off-Road.com posted this sneaky photo of a Ford presentation at SEMA. At first glance, the image shows a vehicle that could most definitely be the rumored “mini Bronco,” which got folks talking. Then, this week, whispers were confirmed via an unnamed source. The pieces are falling into place… Ford trademarked the names “Timberland” and “Maverick” earlier this year—and neither name has a face yet. Could one of them be for the crossover interpretation of a classic?
Seriously Sinister Diesel F-350 Build
Speaking of SEMA aftershock… How’s this for a debut? Sinister Diesel, in their first ever showing at SEMA, blew the roof off the place with this downright nasty F-350 build. Nicknamed the Sintor, it features nearly every part Sinister offers, including cold air intake, DPF-back exhaust, intercooler piping, power steering pump, and more. And it certainly feels sinister, bright red and sitting on 46″ MRAP tires that have the ability to go just about anywhere with heavy-duty Deaver leaf springs. A modified Addictive Desert Designs 2018 F-150 bumper adds style to its threatening mug.
Sinister Diesel said the truck can be purchased for a cool quarter of a million. (It did arrive towing a matching red Lamborghini.) While that makes it a pipe dream, it’s still fun to marvel at the work put into this beautiful machine!
Maserati Names Gardner New North American Chief
New Fiat Chrysler CEO Mike Manley is making front office MOVES. And he kept the ball rolling with Al Gardner selected to lead Maserati in North America. He’ll be taking over for Tim Kuniskis, who took reassignment to exclusively lead the Jeep brand last month. Gardner has been FCA’s dealer network head since 2015, and he will continue to hold his previous position alongside his new appointment. He spearheaded the Chrysler 200 in 2015 and even led the brand for some time.
Around the Circuit
There was a terrifying moment at the Formula 3 Macau Grand Prix when Sophia Floersch lost control in the extremely narrow street track and launched into the crowd. The accompanying video may be disturbing to some viewers. There were no fatalities, though five were injured, and Floersch has since tweeted that she is okay, though she will need surgery.
In off-road racing, the Baja 1000 took place this past weekend with shocking results. Four-time Baja 1000 winner Rob MacCachren appeared to have taken home his fifth title. However, he got hit with time penalties “for speeding and an unsafe, illegal pass on a highway.” The penalties were then enough to knock him from the top of the pedestal and secure the victory for (believed) second place finisher, Cameron Steele. Steele, who began the day in 13th, fought off penalties of his own to outgun Andy McMillin, who took third place.
Last but never least, the NASCAR Monster Energy Series final was Sunday night, and it was ALL Joey Logano. Check out the action here!


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It's a gold medal win that will probably annoy traditional winemakers.
A $6 bottle of Coles private-label cabernet sauvignon has taken out a double gold medal at the Melbourne International Wine Competition.
Coles' St Andrews Cabernet Sauvignon 2016, sold at Liquorland, First Choice and Vintage Cellars, is made from grapes from the Murray Darling and Riverina region.
Coles also won a double gold for a $12.99 Fabulist Pinot Noir 2016 in a category restricting entries to below $30 a bottle.
Only 14 other wines from more than 1100 tasted for the wine show received a double gold medal.
Double gold, rather than gold, is awarded when all judges on the panel are unanimous in awarding the wine a gold medal.
Wine awards are helping shift consumer perceptions that private-label wines may be cheap but poor quality, and is helping drive sales for the retailers.
But the increasing focus on private-label wines – it is estimated one in every five bottles sold by the retailers is a supermarket's own label – is frustrating many in the wine industry. Aldi is also gaining favour with consumers for its house brands.
Critics, including Crittenden Estate founder Garry Crittenden, believe the strategy is deceitful because retailers invent brands that have "no provenance".
The retailers buy bulk fruit, create a brand, and put it on their shelves often at lower price points to similar wines by traditional producers.
Some producers argue the strategy sometimes pushes them off the retail shelves altogether.
But supporters argue the retailers are at least soaking up production, especially from bulk grape producers that have struggled amid a persistent glut of fruit.
Coles head of wine sourcing Bob Paulinski, who was on the judging panel, said he wanted to increase sales of private-label wines for the retailer.
"There is always going to be a broad range of opinion," Mr Paulinski said about the criticism by some winemakers on retailer own brands.
Coles says that during the past 18 months its exclusive wines have won more than 80 medals, including 17 gold medals.
"The work involved in creating these wines is at a very high level," Mr Paulinski said.
"We've worked really hard with our winemaking suppliers for years to create a portfolio of amazing quality wines that over-deliver for our customers," he said.
"A win like this shows that our exclusive wine brands can stand shoulder to shoulder with the best in the market, and is a testament to the incredible work our suppliers do in making these wines."
It's unclear what other wines St Andrews competed against.
Mr Paulinski said Coles had an advantage in creating its wines because it could "pick and choose from a very broad range of regions".
"And we have the flexibility in terms of price points.
"The palate we can work from is very broad."
Coles and Woolworths do not release the names of their private-label brands.
Mr Paulinski said private labels were positioned "just as any branded product would be".
Industry sources say retailers want to boost private-label wines because they can generate about double the profit of branded wines bought from wineries.


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As Credit Cards Hemorrhage Cash, Banks Cull Customers
William “Wild Bill” Janklow’s law office in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is crowded with mementos from his 16 years as a Republican governor. On a low, wooden bookcase, near bottles of hot sauce custom labeled for his annual Buffalo Roundup, he keeps a 4-foot length of red ribbon festooned with Citibank credit cards.
Janklow is the politician who, in 1981, brought Citibank to South Dakota. When he cut that ribbon to welcome the New York- based bank, he blew the lid off the U.S. credit card business, Bloomberg Markets reports in its June Issue.
The law inviting Citibank to South Dakota threw out limits on how much interest the state’s banks could charge borrowers -- rules known as usury caps.
“Citi wanted the invitation, and they knew what we were doing with rates,” Janklow says. In a secret meeting at the governor’s residence with Walter Wriston, chief executive officer of Citicorp, the bank’s parent, Janklow agreed to drive through the legislation in a swap for 400 jobs.
“That was the deal,” Janklow says. “You have no idea, in a state of 750,000, how many 400 jobs is, all in one place.”
The business Janklow and Wriston set in motion with a handshake that evening transformed U.S. consumer lending. Once interest rates were allowed to rise as high as banks could push them, credit cards became a ticket to enormous profit. In the decade ended on Dec. 31, 2007, credit card issuers together earned more than $50 billion, mostly on the difference between their own cost of money and consumer rates of as much as 30 percent. So-called subprime lenders pitched rates as high as 80 percent. At JPMorgan Chase & Co., cards accounted for 20 percent of both revenue and profits in 2007.
“The credit card business has been a critical driver for these companies; it was the single most profitable product in the lending arena next to mortgages,” says Richard Bove, an analyst at Rochdale Securities in Lutz, Florida.
Then the harshest economic decline since the 1930s crushed the job market, and a record number of card holders stopped paying their bills. The three biggest card-issuing banks lost at least $7.3 billion on cards in 2009. Bank of America Corp., after earning $4.3 billion on cards in 2007 -- a third of its total profit -- swung to a $5.5 billion loss in 2009. JPMorgan Chase lost $2.2 billion last year on cards and, in mid-April, reported a $303 million loss for the first quarter.
“We have a business that is hemorrhaging money,” says Paul Galant, CEO of Citigroup Inc.’s card unit, where Citi-branded cards lost $75 million last year. The bank won’t disclose how much it lost on cards it issued under the names of retail stores.
At the same time, the card issuers’ bottom line is being hurt by a new federal law forcing them to be more transparent about fees and interest charges. U.S. credit card issuers wrote off a record total of $89 billion in card debt in 2009 after losing $56 billion in 2008, according to R.K. Hammer Investment Bankers, a Thousand Oaks, California-based adviser to card issuers.
U.S. credit card delinquencies and write-offs tend to track the national jobless rate. When unemployment jumped to 10.1 percent in October, card industry loan write-offs hit 10.4 percent, according to estimates from Moody’s Investors Service.
American Express Co., Capital One Financial Corp. and Discover Financial Services, which only in recent years became banks, fared better than Bank of America, Chase and Citigroup. They made money in 2009 after more-cautious lending during the boom years, which limited the rise in defaults. The sea of red ink began to recede in the first quarter for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America. It reported $952 million in profit from cards in the quarter after releasing reserves set aside in 2009 to cover future defaults.
Turning around their card units may be more important than ever to the banks in the wake of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s lawsuit accusing Goldman Sachs Group Inc. of fraud, says Michael Holland, who oversees more than $4 billion as chairman of Holland & Co. in New York. The case is focusing Washington’s lens on regulating the derivatives market, which could weigh on the big banks’ trading operations, he says.
“I look at cards as able to do well when other parts of the business aren’t,” says Holland, who owns shares of JPMorgan. Still, he thinks the days of immense profits in cards may be over. “The future may not be as good as the past,” Holland says.
As the economy revives, defaults will ease. Washington’s assault on the industry may not. In February, the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act wiped out many of the banks’ most lucrative billing practices, including their ability to raise rates on existing debt at any time.
Now, the banks have to give cardholders 45 days’ warning on any rate rise and can’t apply a new rate on existing debt. JPMorgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said during an earnings conference call in April that the changes will cost his bank up to $750 million in 2010. Banks overall may lose $50 billion in revenue during the next five years, including $11 billion in 2011, because of the legislation, says Robert Hammer, CEO of R.K. Hammer Investment Bankers.
Congress isn’t finished. A proposal for a U.S. consumer finance protection agency, which would police how banks deliver and service financial products, has passed in the House and was being discussed in the Senate as of mid-April.
Credit card customers, meanwhile, are still furious after years of rising rates, snowballing fees and less time in which to pay their bills. Citigroup’s Galant, who took over in April 2009, gets hundreds of e-mails a month.
‘Angry at Us’
“They are angry at us; they are angry at the system; they are angry at the government,” he says. “All they want to do is get back to a peaceful existence.”
The lenders are busy reinventing themselves and the risk models they used to justify passing out plastic to almost anyone who would take it. They had come to rely on computer-generated data to assess borrowers.
“We have shifted to more judgmental lending,” says Susan Faulkner, who took over Bank of America’s card operation in early March.
That means they’re putting human eyes on applications and judging borrowers on, for instance, the type of mortgage they hold. “Instead of starting with the product, we are starting with the customer,” Faulkner says.
The borrowers that card issuers want are richer and more- stable payers than the hordes they marketed to during the boom years. The least-creditworthy customers are being dumped.
Shrinking Credit Lines
The big six issuers have trimmed total credit available to their customers by about 25 percent partly by shrinking credit lines and not renewing expired cards, says Moshe Orenbuch, a bank analyst at Credit Suisse Group AG in New York.
The number of cards in circulation has declined to 576 million from 708 million in 2007, according to the Nilson Report, a Carpinteria, California-based industry newsletter. Customers bear some responsibility for the mess, Faulkner says.
“The business has to be right-sized,” she says. “There was too much credit extended; customers overextended themselves in the use of that credit.”
To hang on to their richest and most reliable payers -- and increase their fee revenue -- the banks are inventing new premium cards and adding to rewards programs. Those willing to pay $85 a year for a Chase Sapphire card, for instance, are guaranteed a live person will answer if they call. They also receive a yearly “dividend” of 7 percent of the reward points they have accumulated.
In November, Chase also offered a co-branded card with British Airways Plc that gave 100,000 miles to any customer who signed up and spent $2,000 in the first three months of membership. That’s more than enough points for a round-trip plane ticket from the U.S. to Europe. Chase has since scaled back the reward to 30,000 points.
They’re all chasing American Express, which has long catered to a wealthier group. The firm made $2.1 billion in 2009, helped by expense cuts and a default rate that was among the lowest in the big six. The company’s stock was the top performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 2009, returning 118 percent.
Total spending per American Express card averaged $8,665 in 2009, compared with an average of $3,073 for cards issued by banks that partner with San Francisco-based Visa Inc. and Purchase, New York-based MasterCard Inc., according to the Nilson Report.
“Everyone is trying to be American Express,” Orenbuch says. Down the line, he says, the competition may mean better pricing for the most-creditworthy customers.
The razzle-dazzle isn’t working yet. U.S. cardholders, still stung by recession, have spent less on plastic. Revolving debt fell by $9.4 billion in February, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve, compared with the same month a year earlier. Overall, consumer credit fell in February for the 12th time in 13 months.
“The banks are feeling the squeeze,” says Elizabeth Warren, who chairs the Congressional Oversight Panel of the government’s Troubled Asset Relief Program and has written four books about debt and the American middle class. Warren, who turns 61 in June, was first to map out the idea for the consumer agency, which President Barack Obama supports.
“Everyone has more credit cards than they want,” Warren says, sitting in the cafeteria of the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill before heading to a meeting at the White House. “There is no more growth.”
Shifting demographics, abetted by the financial crisis, will limit demand for consumer credit for years to come, says David Robertson, publisher of the Nilson Report. The business gathered steam as the post-World War II baby boom generation hit their peak spending years, he says. The next generation is smaller and, coming off the market crash, more cautious.
“There was a fantastic opportunity for the industry to grow with the baby boomers,” Robertson says. “Now you simply don’t have as many people entering their prime years.”
Gordon Smith, who joined JPMorgan’s Chase Bank as CEO of card services in 2007, has a different view. As the U.S. population grows, so will the card business, he says. Long-term behavioral changes, such as Internet shopping and the decline of checks and cash, are spurring the credit- and debit-card business.
“My guess is that the piece of plastic will be in place for a very long time,” Smith says.
JPMorgan Chase, the biggest U.S. card issuer with 145 million accounts and $163 billion in outstanding loans, more than doubled its direct mail offers in the last three months of 2009 from the previous quarter, according to Mintel Comperemedia, a Chicago-based firm that tracks such offers.
“We intend to go after all the best customers of all of our competitors,” Smith says.
The challenge is to sort out the good risks from the bad.
“There is a segment of people who will have a lot less credit available,” Smith says.
Chase has revved up models that compare customers’ total debt level with their income. The bank will likely end up offering credit to about 15 percent fewer customers, Smith says.
To Warren, who is also a Harvard Law School professor, pulling credit from the riskiest borrowers may be necessary. Many low-income cardholders, she says, were drawn in by “tricks and traps,” such as time-limited low rates.
“Millions of American families can’t pay off their credit card bills right now,” says Warren, who estimates that they’re spending $100 billion a year on fees and interest-rate payments. “Are their economic lives better off because they are spending the hundred billion? I don’t think so.”
Warren says most people, regardless of income, should still have some access to consumer credit. She is pushing for lower rates and fees and simpler, more transparent marketing of terms.
“If the business model is to offer credit to every man, woman, child and dog in America in unlimited amounts, it just doesn’t work,” she says. “If it’s to offer a cheaper credit product to people who become more likely to pay, then that is sustainable.”
Bank of America’s Faulkner, who oversees $677 billion in deposits as well as a $150 billion card portfolio, says she has paid attention to surveys showing that customers want more clarity. In September, the bank slapped the decades-old brand name BankAmericard on a basic card, which has one rate (prime plus 14 percent) and one flat fee for late payments ($39). On its Web site, the bank cites its single-page disclosure form as a “key feature.”
“This was answering an unmet need,” Faulkner says.
20 Million Cards
Given the size of her franchise, Faulkner has a long climb ahead before she returns to a time when credit cards were Bank of America’s most reliable profit center. In 2006, CEO Ken Lewis paid $35 billion for MBNA Corp. and its 20 million card customers.
Until the first quarter, Bank of America’s card business had posted six straight quarterly losses, with many of its delinquent borrowers in parts of the country such as California, Florida and Nevada that were hardest hit by the collapse in housing prices.
At Citigroup, Galant is rethinking how revolving, unsecured lending relates to its customers’ other banking products. Among Citigroup’s ideas: the Forward card, which allows customers to earn a 0.25 percentage-point drop in their annual percentage rate, or APR, for three months of paying on time.
“Everybody now is saying, ‘We are going to pick the clients that we think are really safe bets,’” Galant says. “But what about the other 90 percent of people?”
Citibank passed out $80 billion in new credit to borrowers in 2009, including $21 billion in the fourth quarter, spokesman Samuel Wang says. The company is 27 percent owned by the U.S. government.
In Sioux Falls, Citigroup has grown to more than 3,000 employees in 28 departments from those 400 employees promised to Janklow in the 1980s. They occupy a 76-acre (31-hectare) campus near the airport, in three broad, low buildings, which include a day-care center and kindergarten. About 1,200 people work in the 24-hour customer service unit, where most sit in grayfabric cubicles wearing headsets and taking calls from people who are having trouble with their credit cards.
Citi has enhanced efforts that let borrowers delay payments or reduce their interest rates, Wang says. The bank offers incentives and a consolidation program to help reduce card balances. About 490,000 people signed up for such help in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared with about 357,000 a year earlier, Wang says.
‘Hell of a Problem’
Three decades ago, Wriston had urgent business to conduct when he flew to South Dakota. Wriston, who ran Citicorp from 1970 to 1984, was struggling in the aftermath of the high inflation and interest rates of the time. In February 1980, the fed funds rate was 13.35 percent; New York law, meantime, had a statutory cap on consumer lending of 10.5 percent. Citi was losing money on every credit card loan it handed out -- even before factoring in accounting expenses and credit losses.
“Citibank had a hell of a problem,” Janklow says, reminiscing during a three-hour dinner on a March evening at Foleys Steakhouse in Sioux Falls.
Wriston had learned that South Dakota’s bankers were already pushing to jettison the state’s usury caps and that the legislature was in session and might be able to move fast, he says. When the law that some still call the “Citibank bill” passed, “I became a celebrity in credit card circles in America,” Janklow says, with a laugh.
Delaware Joins In
A year after South Dakota lifted its rate caps, Delaware also relaxed its usury rules. JPMorgan and Bank of America’s card businesses are both based in the Middle Atlantic state. Federal law allows banks to lend according to the rules of the state in which they are based.
Once South Dakota and Delaware knocked the lid off interest charges, the U.S. credit card business exploded. A big player in the 1990s was Capital One, which began as the credit card arm of Richmond, Virginia-based Signet Bank.
Capital One developed computer programs designed to assess customers’ shifting risk profiles. The statistical modeling allowed for a much broader range of rate offerings in which stable customers would get lower rates and riskier borrowers could be charged more.
With data suggesting that handing out more credit was a safe bet, card issuers bumped up limits, passed out second and third cards to existing customers and marketed to a broader group.
As the years passed, banks were lulled into thinking they could manage any economic downturn, Nilson Report’s Robertson says. They didn’t bargain for a sudden, severe economic plunge.
“The industry believed that they had enough experience to manage unsecured credit to higher risk consumers,” Robertson says. “But no one anticipated the depth of the recession and the impact it would have on jobs. The unemployment rate is the smoking gun.”
Still, bank adviser Hammer says, the card business isn’t going anywhere.
“The customer got lost in the days of easy money,” he says. “Now they just have to be much smarter about how they do all of this.”
Janklow, the man who brought those jobs to Sioux Falls, was re-elected governor of South Dakota in 1982 with 72 percent of the vote. He served again from 1995 to 2003 and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Then, his career was marred by tragedy.
In August 2003, while driving a Cadillac near his home, he struck and killed a motorcyclist. He was found to have been speeding and to have gone through a stop sign; he was sentenced to 100 days in jail. He left public life and is now practicing law.
Janklow is sympathetic to the woes of the industry that helped make his career, he says. Yet he understands the public anger at the high rates and fees. He still uses an AT&T-branded credit card he got in the 1980s because he was guaranteed no annual fee for life.
“There is an old saying in capitalism: ‘What you abuse, you lose,’” Janklow says.
The question now is whether the executives running the credit card industry have gotten the message.


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1047 Games says that its popular first-person portal-based shooter Splitgate will incorporate a take on Forge mode before Halo Infinite.
In response to a tweet from @KFCGaming asking its community to "trigger an entire gaming fanbase with one sentence," the official Splitgate account responded by announcing, "Splitgate will have a forge mode before Halo Infinite."
Splitgate will have forge mode before Halo Infinite.— Splitgate - Season 0 (@Splitgate) September 15, 2021
(Sorry in advance Halo fans, we love you but we had to)
Originally released in Halo 3, Forge is a mode designed by Bungie that allows players to edit, customize and share maps within the Halo community. Due to its popularity, Forge has become a regular addition to Halo games with the mode being added to subsequent releases within the franchise in Halo Reach, Halo 4, Halo 5: Guardians, and 343 Industries' upcoming installment: Halo Infinite.
Last month, 343 announced that it was delaying the launch of campaign co-op and Forge within Halo Infinite until after launch as it continued to focus on getting the single-player campaign and multiplayer done in time for its launch date. Forge is currently expected to release in Halo Infinite during its third season. With each season set to ship in three-month windows, 1047 Games' own announcement would likely mean that a mode for Splitgate would debut sometime before mid-2022.
In a subsequent tweet in the thread, 1047 Games explained that a its own mode for Splitgate likely wouldn't use the name Forge, but would still allow players to edit maps within the shooter. The developer explained how this might look in Splitgate by saying, "Imagine placing portal pads anywhere you wanted on Olympus."
We probably won't call it forge mode, but it's a map editor. Imagine placing portal pads anywhere you wanted on Olympus!— Splitgate - Season 0 (@Splitgate) September 15, 2021
In other Splitgate news, 1047 Games recently shared more information about its long-term goals following a funding campaign for the studio that raised over $100 million. The company said that while it is still focusing on Splitgate at the moment and for the immediate future, it will look to offer new takes on game genres it believes have become stale in the future.
IGN's Twenty Questions - Guess the game!
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN who would very much enjoy toying around with a Splitgate map editor. You can follow him on Twitter.


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Global technology firm, Xiaomi has announced the launch of Redmi Note 10 series into the Nigerian market.
The new smartphones which launched in Lagos were Xiaomi’s updated mid-range level devices and they included:Redmi Note 10, Redmi Note 10S, Redmi Note 10 5G and the Redmi Note 10 Pro.
Marketing Director of Xiaomi, Habeeb Somoye stated that the new devices pack innovative features and major improvements over their previous models.
Introducing some of the devices trait, Somoye said that Note10 comes with IP53 water resistance and a battery capacity of 5,000mAh as well as fast-charging capabilities of 33W.
“The phone has a 6.43-inch AMOLED DotDisplay. and offers FHD+ resolution, with 20:9 aspect ratio, dual speakers and an entry-level Qualcomm Snapdragon 678 chipset.”
He added that the phone packs a quad rear camera configuration led by a 48MP main lens and an improved built-in Night Mode and time-lapse feature.
Somoye stated that Redmi Note 10 Pro packs every feature of Note10 and more.
He said that the Pro version comes with a bigger display at 6.67-inch at the same resolution and aspect ratio, but also has NFC and packs in 120Hz refresh rate and 240Hz touch sampling rate which makes it palatable to both gamers and video-watchers.
“Both Note 10 and Note 10 Pro use a USB Type-C port, are 4G/LTE devices, and have its iconic multi-purpose IR blaster. Both also have dual speakers and a 3.5mm audio port to cover consumers listening needs”, he said.
He disclosed that the devices are already available for sales at popular phone store.


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People are cheering for Universal Standard's effort to make fashion more inclusive. The company already includesd sizes from 6-32 but now they are taking it further on both sides of the size spectrum. The line has not rolled out yet, but there is already a wait list.
Customers and Instagram followers couldn't be happier with the decision.
The praise kept rolling in.
Unfortunately, it was a different story on Twitter, where some nasty comments flourished.
Luckily, there were some folks willing to step up and fire back.
We're excited too. Kudos to Universal Standard!


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PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Outdoor dining has been a necessity for both businesses and a sense of normalcy over the past 15 months, but some say those temporary structures could create long-lasting parking problems.
"We want to make it permanent, we want to keep this," said Erin Callahan, general manager of The Plough and the Stars.
Callahan said expanding outdoor dining to the street has been great for her restaurant's business during the pandemic. However, on the 100 block of Chestnut Street, some of the outdoor eating establishments have cut down a lane of traffic, and taken up parking spaces. And parking garages can be expensive.
To incentivize people back to the city as more people are traveling again, Visit Philly is sponsoring free parking at the Auto Park at Independence Mall on Saturdays if you park after 10 a.m. and leave by 7 p.m.
"You'll make the Visitors Center your first stop. You'll take a ticket when you enter the garage and then come to our information desk and purchase a ticket with a value of $8 or more, and you park for free," said Jennifer Nagle, the executive Vice President of Independence Visitor Center Corporation.
Some tourists Action News spoke with said this will bring them back to visit Philadelphia again.
"We saw parking yesterday for $37 for like 90 minutes. We were like good golly," said Parik Patel, from Midland, Texas.
"We walked like 10 blocks here to find a spot. If some of this was free it would have been a lot easier, especially for I'd say elderly folks that can't walk that distance," said Jatin Patel, from Dallas.
Some residents of the city who rely on street parking said outdoor eatery establishments have been disrupting their quality of life and would like to see dining pushed back to the sidewalks again soon.
"These igloos up the street take away about four or five parking spaces, and an issue is when the business is not open at night they're still occupying the spaces," said Prince Anthony Thomas, a resident of Northern Liberties. "So for residents here they don't have spaces, and they have to park elsewhere."
As the city is starting to ease mask restrictions, some restaurant managers in the city told Action News they're nervous they could lose the street dining at some point.
A spokesperson for the city sent Action News a statement regarding outdoor dining in the city.
"Since launching in June 2020, Philadelphia's outdoor dining initiative-launched as a temporary, emergency support program-has helped more than 750 restaurants to earn much needed revenue by offering outdoor dining, safely. Currently, the temporary outdoor/ROW dining program will continue through December 31, 2021, but there may be some adjustments to it this year.
As we move towards a full reopening, we are holding regular discussions with the restaurant business community and are looking at the complicated issues around what elements of the program will need to be scaled back and what elements of the program may make sense to continue in the longer term. We don't have more to share at this time."


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I was one of the only people in line the past few weeks at the Chaima African food truck, which parks downtown on Thursdays at the lunchtime food truck rally around Gene Leahy Mall.
I suspect some of those people around me, who were waiting in long lines for an order of tacos or a slice of pizza, might be in a different line this week.
Chaima African is serving some of the most unusual food truck fare I’ve had in Omaha; their small bricks-and-mortar restaurant has a more expanded selection of African cuisine. What’s more, the two lunches I ate at their mobile venue were cooked to order, well-seasoned and priced just right.
Owner and chef Chaima Maradi, who is from Togo, in West Africa, opened the restaurant in 2012 and added a food truck to the business last year. She said the menu includes dishes from Togo, but also from the Ivory Coast, Ghana and Benin.
She’s been in Omaha since 2002, and always been into cooking, a hobby she’s loved since childhood. She estimated about 20 percent of her customers are from Africa.
“The rest are my fellow Americans,” she said.
I saw a lot of familiar ingredients on the menu at Chaima — fish, chicken, beef, curry spices, rice and plantains among them. But a few I hadn’t seen before, like the cassava couscous that comes served with a big piece of grilled tilapia, grilled peppers and onions and cubed grilled plantain.
Cassava, the starchy, tuberous root of a tropical tree, gets pulverized into bits and steamed, creating a pleasant texture, like rice or couscous, with a mostly savory, nicely seasoned flavor. In the Attieke Poisson Braisé, it’s served next to a crispy piece of fish, soft roasted vegetables and deliciously sweet charred plantains. I had little to complain about.
Maradi said the cassava couscous is a dish from the Ivory Coast. The restaurant imports the side dish frozen from an African market.
Plantains pop up fried, the way I had them, but also boiled and mashed in fufu. In Togo, less ripe plantains are served grilled; they can also be boiled and served like a baked potato. I dare you to leave one of the sweet cubes of the fried version on your plate. They’re that tasty.
The menu features a variety of rice-and-meat dishes, and we tried two: the Riz Creole, which is curried rice mixed with cut brown noodles served alongside sauteed beef mixed with carrots, peppers and other vegetables. The beef, tender and well-spiced, paired nicely with the interesting rice, a mix of chewy noodle pieces, well-cooked rice and curry.
All the entrees come with a side of house-made hot sauce, which brings a touch of heat and plenty of vinegary zing.
We also tried Riz Cantonnais, marinated grilled chicken breast cut into strips and served next to a different variety of rice, this one studded with small vegetables. The dish, spicy and warming, made for a filling lunch.
The Riz Cantonnais and the Riz Creole are Maradi’s own creations, and not typical of most West African food.
“Those dishes just came from me playing with flavors,” she said.
Another thing at Chaima came from that, too: the house pineapple citrus beverage. Maradi said she had some catering jobs and customers were hoping for a juice to drink, but she didn’t want to serve the “regular boring stuff out of the store.” So she began mixing her own. Now, she sells the juice at the food truck and the restaurant, and it’s become a staple.
“The response was amazing,” she said. “I discovered I was sitting on a fortune, and I didn’t even know what I had.”
One of the other big surprises, she said, is how many Omahans are into her food.
“One of my goals was to build a bridge and establish a line of communication,” she said. “I want to educate about Africa, and to have Americans embrace it. So far, they have been doing an amazing job.”
I could say the same of Maradi. Have yourself a new experience, one that’s filling and fresh, and get in her line.


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Calvin Klein is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its unisex CK One fragrance with a new campaign being pushed out via Snapchat and Tumblr.
Aiming to “capture the relevance of the brand for a new generation”, the initiative showcases a range of models, artists and musicians seemingly taking selfies – posing for the camera while they roll around on the bed, take a bath, make-out, and do all those other things youth do in front of their iPhones today.
“The new ck one advertising campaign illustrates the modern practice of using digital identities to connect with others and to convey individuality,” reads the write-up. That idea of embracing digital culture was a key message from Calvin Klein CCO Melisa Goldie when speaking at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity earlier this month. “The dawn of the digital age means culture is more relevant [for brands] than ever before. You have to look at culture through a digital lens, then decide which changes are meaningful for you and which ones can help you shape and grow,” she said.
On this occasion, the brand has released both a print campaign and a video (as below) shot by Mario Sorrenti, as well as additional content of the cast at the shoot aggregated under the #ckmeforme hashtag on the aforementioned platforms.
The talent includes singer/songwriter Dev Hynes and his girlfriend, singer Samantha Urbani; sister musicians Say Lou Lou; electro-pop singer Kelela; electronic artist and producer Evian Christ; Korean pop star Taeyang; singer and actress Soko; artist Ally Marzella; fashion photographer Michael Bailey Gates; photographer and fashion designer Petra Collins; and models Edie Campbell, Stephan James, Chuck, Ali Michael, Jing Wen, Justin Gerard, Lucky Blue, Maggie Laine, Marcel Castenmiller and Victor Correia. The TV spot also features an exclusive demo produced by electronic artist and producer Evian Christ.
The campaign was produced under the direction of Calvin Klein’s in-house ad agency and Mother New York.


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One thing we do here occasionally is admit we've got something wrong. OK, perhaps more than occasionally. If we're playing Honesty, it near on takes up three-quarters of our time.
So it is with battle-weary department store Myer, under the leadership of chief executive Richard "No Numbers" Umbers. The former British Army officer procured (pun intended) the derisive moniker during his stint at Woolworths – that's the Fresh Food People, not the Jaapie owners of David Jones – running the ironically named Everyday Rewards (the name "One Day You'll Earn a Free Rice Bubbles Valuepack" was too unwieldy, and literal) and carried it to Australia Post, too.
But we're humbly retiring the nickname. Umbers, it seems, does have the numbers.
Myer shares popped on Friday, closing up a whopping 14.4 per cent and leaving shortsellers covered in blood, after the company's AGM in Melbourne where Umbers forecast FY17 earnings above consensus and chairman Paul McClintock indicated he'd be buggering off before the next one.
To put it kindly, Umbers seemed an uninspirational appointment by McClintock in March 2015, when veteran chief Bernie Brookes left. The Dural TAB became an overnight basket case last year when Bernie moved to Johannesburg to run Edcon (is there an indelible Saffa theme to this story?).
Back then, even billionaire rag trader Solomon Lew, having coveted the household name for a generation, couldn't be interested in an opportunistic play.
And now Myer (unwinding Brookes' private label strategy) is outpacing DJs (eschewing external brands for its own) in same-store sales growth for the first time since Gordon Cairns kicked a field goal and made them official tailor to the Springboks and the Proteas. Ian Moir's board – which includes former Westpac chief Gail Kelly and Fairfax Media director Patrick Allaway – now has 2.2 billion reasons to be breathing down his neck.
Mind you, Myer's market capitalisation is still languishing at $932 million (compared to TPG's $1.5 billion upside in 2009 – that Ben Gray is a genius). Could Woolworths double down?
A combined entity, a discretionary retailer with a $5.7 billion sales line; the supply chain efficiencies, let alone the downside for Frank Lowy, would be substantial, let alone the end of their competitive cannibalisation. One could battle the high-end standalones as the other fought international fast fashion. I should be an investment banker! Lord knows I've got the avarice and amorality covered …
As for Umbers, it must be tremendously satisfying when being underestimated morphs into a modicum of respect. We hope he enjoys it.
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LIRNEasia’s Senior Research Fellow Payal Malik has fired a major volley in India’s spectrum debate aimed at former Minister Kapil Sibal. There is interesting discussion on her Facebook page.
A competitive spectrum auction process facilitates the assigning of licences to the most efficient producers, aiding efficient aggregation of spectrum, and ensures efficient allocation of spectrum into services consumers value the most, thereby expanding the supply and reducing the prices of the wireless services most valued by consumers. Simply put, if tariffs didn’t go up in 2010 after the 3G auctions and in 2014 after the 2G auctions (which raised $14.5 billion and $10 billion, respectively) despite India having the cheapest data packages in any of the emerging economies, they should not go up now.
Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/ph1L7O68jYLg2MHWsd7MJK/The-fuss-over-spectrum-auctions.html?utm_source=copy


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Xinxin Li, Justin Mathena, and Yan Wang Win LPR Global’s 2010 Online Marketing Competition at the Rotman School of Management
Team’s Innovative Online Strategy Launches 3D Scanner Technology into North America
TORONTO, ONTARIO, December 2, 2010 LPR Global Inc., the Toronto-based marketing consultancy that specializes in South Korean trade with the West, awarded a cash prize to the winning team in a competition that was part of an independent study program conducted with the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. For the second summer in a row LPR Global executives together with Professor Becky Reuber facilitated a project of hands-on, real-world exploration designed to create online marketing strategies for new advanced surveillance, detector, and communications products from top South Korean manufacturers as part of LPR Global’s US
Korea Hotlink trade initiative http://www.uskoreahotlink.com. Each team, composed of students from the Rotman MBA program, were given a new product that they then had to develop and execute an integrated product launch plan based on their independent market research and then apply their newly learned online marketing skills such as search engine optimization, web content development, and web analytics to drive their marketing plan.
Xinxin Li, MBA’11, Justin Mathena, MBA’11, and Yan Wang, MBA’11 collaborated to develop a marketing strategy for an emerging 3D Scanning technology being introduce into North America and Europe. They faced the challenge of taking a product with no name recognition or brand identity or even a Western market customer base and created a successful online and offline go-to-market strategy to reach their audience. In addition to new business leads generated by their web strategy, six weeks after the ISP formally ended LPR Global was still scheduling meetings with key national resellers and partners that the team identified and contacted as critical prospects to facilitate the 3D scanner’s North American market adoption. Ms. Li, Mr. Mathena, Ms. Wang will share a $2,500 prize.
“The project was a wonderful opportunity for the students,” said Becky Reuber, a professor of strategic management at the Rotman School. “It gave them a real context to learn about industry analysis, international business and new product introduction. And LPR Global provided a great learning environment.”
“This year’s Independent Study Program winners developed a very effective marketing strategy that cut through the marketplace’s clutter and enabled them to reach their targeted audience based on their outstanding research; their work was greatly appreciated by our clients,” stated Mikah Lee, CEO of LPR Global and graduate of the Rotman MBA program.
About LPR Global, Inc. LPR Global is a marketing consultancy headquartered in Toronto, Ontario with affiliated operations in the US and South Korea. Founded in 2001, LPR Global provides advisory and business development services to companies, government organizations, and professional services firms doing business between South Korean and Western markets. Visit https://www.lprglobal.com or http://www.uskoreahotlink.com Contact: Mike LaTorraca 416-848-3926 firstname.lastname@example.org
About the Rotman School of Management The Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto is redesigning business education for the 21st century with a curriculum based on Integrative Thinking. Located in the world’s most diverse city, the Rotman School fosters a new way to think that enables the design of creative business solutions. The School is currently raising $200 million to ensure Canada has the world-class business school it deserves. Visit www.rotman.utoronto.ca Contact: Ken McGuffin 416-946-3818 email@example.com


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Acquisition company also owns Harvest Hill Beverage Co.
January 14, 2016
J.W. Child Associates, a Boston-based private equity firm and the owner of Sunny Delight Beverages Co. (SDBC), has agreed to sell SDBC to Brynwood Partners VII L.P., Greenwich, Conn., for an undisclosed amount pending regulatory approval. SDBC, a Cincinnati-based company, was formed by J.W. Childs in 2004 when it acquired the SunnyD brand from The Procter & Gamble Co., Cincinnati.
From tasting freshly squeezed Florida orange juice as a young boy to driving past rows of almond trees in blossom en route to his Bakersfield, Calif.-based plant, Califia Farms’ Founder and Chief Executive Officer Greg Steltenpohl derives inspiration from smelling and tasting new innovations, while listening to and leading a team of passionate employees.
Health and wellness, convenience trends drive beverage innovation
December 11, 2015
Creating a new beverage presents myriad challenges. According to Chicago-based Mintel’s Global New Products Database, 3,142 new beverages were released in the United States from January to October 2015.
Innova Market Insights offers 10 trends dominating the market
November 17, 2015
The clean-eating trend has inspired a back-to-basics approach in product development and is an overarching theme in The Netherlands-based Innova Market Insights' Top Ten Trends list for 2016. New global products tracked with an "organic" claim have risen from 6.3 percent in the first half of 2013 to 9.5 percent in the first half of 2015, the market research firm says. A surge in "free from" launches and "flexitarian" options also has been reported. A live webinar at 10 a.m. EDT on Nov. 24 will provide an overview of all the key trends, it adds.
The January 2017 issue of Beverage Industry includes our 2017 Bottler of the Year cover story as well as articles about new product development, packaging, health and wellness products and more. Check it out today!


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Bulk wine imports reign supreme in the US
Bulk wine imports saw the biggest volume rise of any category in the US last year, up 10.2% to almost 4.9 million hl — an all-time high.
Imports of bulk wine in the US soared for the fourth year in a row, equivalent to 34% of the overall volume purchased in 2022. Wine imported in bulk also recorded an historic high in value terms, although not as stark a jump as volume, amounting to a 5.5% rise to US$420 million.
Bulk imports were also only wine category that reduced its price, down 4.2% to 86 cents per litre, although prices were particularly high in 2021, World Bulk Wine (WBW) has reported.
The top six leading supplying countries represented 95.6% of the overall volume of bulk wine imported in 2022. Canada and Chile continue to be the primary suppliers of bulk wine in terms of volume, and over 40% of the bulk wine imported by the US comes from Canada, at an average price of less than 26 USD/hl.
Purchases from southern hemisphere regions including Australia, South Africa and Argentina also skyrocketed in 2022, WBW has said, while New Zealand has regained its leadership in terms of value.
European supplying countries played a minimal role in bulk wine imported by the US, with a stronger focused on sparkling and bottled wine sales.
In other wine categories, the US saw an increase in the volume of sparkling imports. Bottled wine imports increased slightly in value, but dropped in terms of volume. Bag-in-box wines experienced a sharp decline.
Conversely, the volume of bulk wine exported by the US tell a very different story, dropping 27% to 1.2 million hl, the lowest recorded over the past 15 years. However, the decline was smaller in terms of value.
Sparkling wine and, to a lesser extent, bottled and bag-in-box wines, also decreased in terms of volume, despite generating more turnover compared to 2021.


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InterContinental Bangkok has successfully secured title of Asia’s Top Business Hotel during the NOW Travel Asia Awards 2014 Gala Ceremony.
Jupiters Hotel & Casino launched its brand new Japanese restaurant and bar Kiyom.
The co-branded marketing partnership between THAI Smile Airways and Cartoon Network Amazone will give a significant boost to Thailand’s tourism strategies.
TAT is inviting tourists and visitors of Thailand to enjoy the “Colours of Doi Tung” celebration during this festive season.
Fear and fitness joined forces this month at the U-Tapao Ripley’s Run, which saw fun runners chased round the Navel Airbase by over 300 growling zombies.
Joint study conducted by TSA Solutions, Brand Karma and Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts reveals definitive link between successful front desk upselling and increased positive online reviews.
Australian cruisers primed to grow significantly in 2015.
The world’s first B2B travel app reaches 1 million downloads.
Pullman Sydney Hyde Park and Novotel Sydney Olympic Park appointed ‘Official Hotel for the Apia International Sydney’.
Attract China Shares Top Five Trends in China’s Outbound Travel Market for 2015.
Overseas travellers to Japan can purchase packaged tours from Japan Airlines.
Air Tahiti Nui has launched a striking new-look website with beautiful imagery reflecting its stunning destinations.
Mr Paul Hughes today announced his resignation as Chief Executive Officer of Newcastle Airport Pty Limited, effective March 2015.
A voyage through Borneo and into the heart of the coral triangle.
There are now more options for NZ and Fijian travellers with Fiji Airways introducing more seats from Wellington to Los Angeles.
Topdeck Travel is showcasing the best of its own backyard and the ‘neighbours across the way’ with the launch of its exciting Australia and New Zealand 2015/16 brochure.
Brand USA’s new online agent training platform, the USA Discovery Program, continues to experience high levels of industry uptake.
Air South expands charter fleet with faster aircraft and more Adelaide pilot and crew jobs to service remote resources sector.
The annual ‘Great Air Canada Paddle’ had an American theme this year as the airline used the fun kayaking event in Sydney to celebrate its new direct connection to New York via Vancouver.
Next Anzac Day, 25 April 2015, will see the main commemorative event at Gallipoli in Turkey, on the 100th anniversary of the Anzac landings.


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PAS 2030 official code of practice updated to support launch of flagship energy efficiency scheme
Standards body the BSI has this week launched an update to the government-approved standard designed to support Green Deal energy efficiency assessments. Launched last year with backing from the Department...
Tech giant quadruples number of locations for US customers to hand in old iPhones as part of recycling and reuse drive
GreenBiz releases its latest update on soaring renewables demand from US corporates
Record amount of future new wind capacity will be financed from last year's investment, according to WindEurope
Nation known for its natural beauty is under pressure with extinctions, polluted rivers and blighted lakes