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First Mover Asia: Crypto Legislation, Enforcement Highlight A Busy Fall For Financial Regulators; Bitcoin Holds Steady Over $19K – CoinDesk https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/first-mover-asia-crypto-legislation-enforcement-highlight-a-busy-fall-for-financial-regulators-bitcoin-holds-steady-over-19k-coindesk/ Good morning. Here’s what’s happening: Prices: Bitcoin held its most recent perch over $19,000, despite the latest hawkish comments from Federal Reserve officials. Insights: Financial regulators in Asia face a Fall season of crypto reckoning. Catch the latest episodes of CoinDesk TV for insightful interviews with crypto industry leaders and analysis. And sign up for First Mover, our daily newsletter putting the latest moves in crypto markets in context. ●Bitcoin (BTC): $19,375 +0.8% ●Ether (ETH): $1,638 +0.8% ●S&P 500 daily close: 4,006.18 +0.7% ●Gold: $1,729 per troy ounce +1.2% ●Ten-year Treasury yield daily close: 3.29% +0.03 Bitcoin, ether and gold prices are taken at approximately 4pm New York time. Bitcoin is the CoinDesk Bitcoin Price Index (XBX); Ether is the CoinDesk Ether Price Index (ETX); Gold is the COMEX spot price. Information about CoinDesk Indices can be found at coindesk.com/indices. Bitcoin Holds Firm Over $19K Bitcoin spent a second consecutive day firmly embedded above its most recent, $19,000 support line. The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization was recently trading over $19,350, nearly a percentage point higher than where it stood 24 hours ago as investors weighed the latest hawkish comments by U.S. central bank officials. With only a couple of blips, bitcoin has spent much of the past two weeks hovering over $19,000. Ether, the second largest crypto by market cap and token of the Ethereum blockchain, was recently changing hands above $1,600, up 0.8% from a day earlier. Ethereum’s Merge, which will shift the protocol from proof-of-work to a more energy-efficient proof-of-stake protocol, and has excited investors, is roughly a week away. Other major altcoins spent much of the day in the green with LINK and SOL recently up more than 8% and 5%, respectively. Crypto prices followed a recent trend in tracking stocks, which closed higher on Thursday. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, S&P 500, which has a big tech component, and Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) all climbed more than a half-percentage point as markets seemed untroubled by the latest statements from Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who reiterated the bank’s commitment to tame inflation on Thursday at an event organized by the libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute. “History cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy,” Powell said. The release next week of the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) will show if the Fed has made progress in its inflation fight, although most observers of monetary policy expect the bank to raise interest rates a robust 75 basis points for a third consecutive time. Faced with soaring prices across the continent, the European Central bank on Thursday boosted its rate by this increment for the first time since it it began setting monetary policy in 1999. In a bad news is good news data point, mortgage rates increased to their highest level in almost 14 years, the latest sign of the sort of cooling economy that the Fed is seeking. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate is now approaching 6%, about double where it stood a year ago, a weekly report by mortgage provider Freddie Mac showed. In crypto news, Powell repeated his position that the Fed does not want to interfere with crypto innovation but that regulation is important. Powell stressed the need for proper regulation of stablecoins if these are to have the properties of money such as clarity, transparency and full reserves. “I don’t think you want to take money and make it into just another consumer product where sometimes it fails and sometimes it’s good,” he said. In an interview with CoinDesk TV’s First Mover program, Andre Portilho, head of digital assets at Brazilian financial services firm BTG Pactual, also highlighted the need for smart rules. “Regulation needs to evolve,” Portilho said, referring to comments by SEC Chair Gary Gensler who appeared earlier in the program. He added: “We need actually better regulation and more modern regulation in order for the technology benefits and gains [to] come to the market. Biggest Gainers Biggest Losers Asset Ticker Returns DACS Sector Shiba Inu SHIB 0.0% Currency A Fall Season of Crypto Reckoning in Asia? This summer was a busy one for the enforcement arm of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as it pursued four crypto-related cases that ranged from insider trading at Coinbase, to crypto-related Ponzi schemes, and the all-time classic ‘selling unregistered securities. In Asia, regulators are preparing for an equally busy fall with everything from legislation to enforcement action on the table. The crypto industry likes to think of itself as being ‘everywhere but nowhere.’ Register in a friendly jurisdiction, and provide service through the worldwide web is the prevailing mantra. But South Korean authorities don’t like the idea. The Korea Financial Intelligence Unit (KoFIU) is targeting 16 crypto exchanges for conducting “illegal business activities” by operating in Korea without a proper virtual asset service provider (VASP) license. It’s yet to be seen what Korean authorities will do about this. Regulators in Ontario faced a similar situation with KuCoin, which was accused by the OSC of selling unregistered securities to residents of the province. Seychelles-registered KuCoin is said to have been uncooperative with the investigation, questioning the regulator’s authority over them and ghosting them entirely. Time will tell if they do the same with Korean authorities. Meanwhile, South Korea’s Financial Services Commission (FSC), the parent organization of KoFIU, wants crypto legislation fast-tracked through the country’s National Assembly to give it a post-Terra tool kit to deal with the crypto landscape. There are 13 proposals for new crypto legislation waiting, CoinDesk previously reported, including the country’s upcoming digital asset framework, the Digital Asset Basic Act. Thailand isn’t considered a traditional financial hub in Asia, but its banks and trading community have enthusiastically embraced crypto. Siam Commercial Bank, for instance, has a $50 million blockchain fund and in early 2022 was using Compound to generate yield. And for a non-financial hub that name isn’t exactly associated with good governance. Its regulator has been proactive in creating a rules-based crypto market that looks to protect consumers. Last year, the regulator banned NFTs and meme tokens from local exchanges as they have “no clear objectives or substance.” Now, the central bank, in conjunction with the SEC, is set to get a complete regulatory toolkit as lawmakers prepare to debate a crypto framework in the nation’s parliament. It should be noted that Thai authorities aren’t trying to ban the retail trading of crypto. Thai SEC Secretary-General Ruenvadee Suwanmongkol has been quoted as saying that the commission’s mandate is to “provide more protection for small investors, some of whom are putting most of their savings into these assets.” This is far removed from Singapore’s approach, which is an outright ban ( although officials say that enforcing such a ban isn’t realistic). For instance, while Thailand regulates retail-focused crypto advertising to ensure that risk disclosures are present and numbers in the adverts are accurate, Singapore bans it entirely. Thailand regulators are going to have a complicated case in the coming weeks regarding Zipmex, a Thai-based but Singapore-registered exchange that had to temporarily suspend withdrawals earlier this year because of exposure to debt that souredduring the broader market downturn. Thailand’s SEC wants the police to compel Zipmex to hand over key documents. But Zipmex says those documents are contained within its Singapore entity, which is not under the jurisdiction of Thai authorities. Another case of crypto companies wanting to be everywhere but nowhere. Singapore is the de-facto crypto hub of Asia, but regulators in-country aren’t all that comfortable with the term. They would much rather it be the region’s digital assets hub, a term that encompasses crypto but also includes digitized financial products like security token offerings (STOs). Institutional crypto is alright, but retail is a hard no. “Yes to digital asset innovation, no to cryptocurrency speculation,” is how the director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore put it in a recent speech. Perhaps part of the hostility regulators have towards crypto is that as a hub, Singapore’s institutions must work through crypto’s biggest problems. Singapore’s judicial system is tasked with helping clean up the mess left behind by Three Arrows Capital. Many of the world’s Web3 projects are registered in Singapore, despite their presence in the city being little more than a post office box or a rented desk at a co-working space. Terraform Labs comes to mind, as does Three Arrows Capital. As a result, tighter regulations are coming. The Monetary Authority of Singapore is attempting to do a voluntary audit of crypto firms that have a digital payments license to determine how exposed they are to other firms, especially with lending and borrowing. The exact details of Singapore’s new crypto legislation are expected in the fall, probably around the time of the city’s Token2049 crypto conference. If there’s a clue to what it might entail, one could look at a recent quote from Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore. “Cryptocurrencies have taken a life of their own outside of the distributed ledger and this is the source of the crypto world’s problems,” he said during a recent speech. Practising Law Institute: The ...

U.S. Says Russia Price Cap Should Take Risk Premium Out Of Oil Market – Reuters https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/u-s-says-russia-price-cap-should-take-risk-premium-out-of-oil-market-reuters/ Liberia-flagged Aframax tanker Suvorovsky Prospect discharges fuel oil from Russia at the Matanzas terminal, in Matanzas, Cuba, July 16, 2022. REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini/File Photo Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com SINGAPORE/WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) – The price cap that G7 countries want to impose on Russian oil to punish Moscow should be set at a fair market value minus any risk premium resulting from its invasion of Ukraine, a U.S. Treasury Department official told reporters on Friday. The price should be set above the marginal production cost of Russia’s oil and take into consideration historical prices, said Elizabeth Rosenberg, U.S. Treasury Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes. The G7 price cap plan agreed last week calls for participating countries to deny insurance, finance, brokering and other services to oil cargoes priced above a yet to be set price cap on crude and two oil products. read more Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Rosenberg said services providers would not have to police price cap compliance themselves but could rely on the attestations of buyers and sellers, leaving enforcement to participating jurisdictions. She said the G7 countries – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States – would work together in coming weeks to determine the capped price and other key implementation details. “There are several key data points we are considering and how the prices should ultimately be set and that includes the marginal cost of production for Russian oil,” Rosenberg told a briefing call held for media in Asia. “The price cap price should be … in line or consistent with historical prices accepted by the Russian market.” That could imply a potential cap of around $60 a barrel, experts say, as Russian Urals crude, based off of benchmark Brent, sold for $50 to $70 a barrel in 2019. Russian government documents have identified a marginal crude production cost of $44 per barrel, although some Western officials believe it may be somewhat lower. A European official said G7 members had not begun formal discussions about the price cap, although officials had “notions” about what was possible. “The idea is that you still incentivize Russian oil producers to export by guaranteeing a price in line with their cost of production with a small incentive,” the official said. U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and other Biden administration officials have been travelling to oil consuming countries to promote a mechanism that seeks to cut Russia’s oil export revenues, the lifeblood of its war machine, without reducing volumes of Russian shipments to global markets. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia would halt shipments to countries that impose the price cap. read more Putin says Russia is conducting a “special military operation” in Ukraine to protect his country’s security against expansion of the Western military alliance NATO. read more Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com Reporting by Florence Tan in Singapore, and David Lawder, Timothy Gardner and Andrea Shalal in Washington; Writing by Timothy Gardner and David Lawder; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Tom Hogue Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Modeling The Social Mind | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute Of Technology – MIT News https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/modeling-the-social-mind-mit-news-massachusetts-institute-of-technology-mit-news/ Typically, it would take two graduate students to do the research that Setayesh Radkani is doing. Driven by an insatiable curiosity about the human mind, she is working on two PhD thesis projects in two different cognitive neuroscience labs at MIT. For one, she is studying punishment as a social tool to influence others. For the other, she is uncovering the neural processes underlying social learning — that is, learning from others. By piecing together these two research programs, Radkani is hoping to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms underpinning social influence in the mind and brain. Radkani lived in Iran for most of her life, growing up alongside her younger brother in Tehran. The two spent a lot of time together and have long been each other’s best friends. Her father is a civil engineer, and her mother is a midwife. Her parents always encouraged her to explore new things and follow her own path, even if it wasn’t quite what they imagined for her. And her uncle helped cultivate her sense of curiosity, teaching her to “always ask why” as a way to understand how the world works. Growing up, Radkani most loved learning about human psychology and using math to model the world around her. But she thought it was impossible to combine her two interests. Prioritizing math, she pursued a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the Sharif University of Technology in Iran. Then, late in her undergraduate studies, Radkani took a psychology course and discovered the field of cognitive neuroscience, in which scientists mathematically model the human mind and brain. She also spent a summer working in a computational neuroscience lab at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. Seeing a way to combine her interests, she decided to pivot and pursue the subject in graduate school. An experience leading a project in her engineering ethics course during her final year of undergrad further helped her discover some of the questions that would eventually form the basis of her PhD. The project investigated why some students cheat and how to change this. “Through this project I learned how complicated it is to understand the reasons that people engage in immoral behavior, and even more complicated than that is how to devise policies and react in these situations in order to change people’s attitudes,” Radkani says. “It was this experience that made me realize that I’m interested in studying the human social and moral mind.” She began looking into social cognitive neuroscience research and stumbled upon a relevant TED talk by Rebecca Saxe, the John W. Jarve Professor in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, who would eventually become one of Radkani’s research advisors. Radkani knew immediately that she wanted to work with Saxe. But she needed to first get into the BCS PhD program at MIT, a challenging obstacle given her minimal background in the field. After two application cycles and a year’s worth of graduate courses in cognitive neuroscience, Radkani was accepted into the program. But to come to MIT, she had to leave her family behind. Coming from Iran, Radkani has a single-entry visa, making it difficult for her to travel outside the U.S. She hasn’t been able to visit her family since starting her PhD and won’t be able to until at least after she graduates. Her visa also limits her research contributions, restricting her from attending conferences outside the U.S. “That is definitely a huge burden on my education and on my mental health,” she says. Still, Radkani is grateful to be at MIT, indulging her curiosity in the human social mind. And she’s thankful for her supportive family, who she calls over FaceTime every day. Modeling how people think about punishment In Saxe’s lab, Radkani is researching how people approach and react to punishment, through behavioral studies and neuroimaging. By synthesizing these findings, she’s developing a computational model of the mind that characterizes how people make decisions in situations involving punishment, such as when a parent disciplines a child, when someone punishes their romantic partner, or when the criminal justice system sentences a defendant. With this model, Radkani says she hopes to better understand “when and why punishment works in changing behavior and influencing beliefs about right and wrong, and why sometimes it fails.” Punishment isn’t a new research topic in cognitive neuroscience, Radkani says, but in previous studies, scientists have often only focused on people’s behavior in punitive situations and haven’t considered the thought processes that underlie those behaviors. Characterizing these thought processes, though, is key to understanding whether punishment in a situation can be effective in changing people’s attitudes. People bring their prior beliefs into a punitive situation. Apart from moral beliefs about the appropriateness of different behaviors, “you have beliefs about the characteristics of the people involved, and you have theories about their intentions and motivations,” Radkani says. “All those come together to determine what you do or how you are influenced by punishment,” given the circumstances. Punishers decide a suitable punishment based on their interpretation of the situation, in light of their beliefs. Targets of punishment then decide whether they’ll change their attitude as a result of the punishment, depending on their own beliefs. Even outside observers make decisions, choosing whether to keep or change their moral beliefs based on what they see. To capture these decision-making processes, Radkani is developing a computational model of the mind for punitive situations. The model mathematically represents people’s beliefs and how they interact with certain features of the situation to shape their decisions. The model then predicts a punisher’s decisions, and how punishment will influence the target and observers. Through this model, Radkani will provide a foundational understanding of how people think in various punitive situations. Researching the neural mechanisms of social learning In parallel, working in the lab of Professor Mehrdad Jazayeri, Radkani is studying social learning, uncovering its underlying neural processes. Through social learning, people learn from other people’s experiences and decisions, and incorporate this socially acquired knowledge into their own decisions or beliefs. Humans are extraordinary in their social learning abilities, however our primary form of learning, shared by all other animals, is learning from self-experience. To investigate how learning from others is similar to or different from learning from our own experiences, Radkani has designed a two-player video game that involves both types of learning. During the game, she and her collaborators in Jazayeri’s lab record neural activity in the brain. By analyzing these neural measurements, they plan to uncover the computations carried out by neural circuits during social learning, and compare those to learning from self-experience. Radkani first became curious about this comparison as a way to understand why people sometimes draw contrasting conclusions from very similar situations. “For example, if I get Covid from going to a restaurant, I’ll blame the restaurant and say it was not clean,” Radkani says. “But if I hear the same thing happen to my friend, I’ll say it’s because they were not careful.” Radkani wanted to know the root causes of this mismatch in how other people’s experiences affect our beliefs and judgements differently from our own similar experiences, particularly because it can lead to “errors that color the way that we judge other people,” she says. By combining her two research projects, Radkani hopes to better understand how social influence works, particularly in moral situations. From there, she has a slew of research questions that she’s eager to investigate, including: How do people choose who to trust? And which types of people tend to be the most influential? As Radkani’s research grows, so does her curiosity.

The Biggest Gaming News For September 8, 2022 – TheGamer https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/the-biggest-gaming-news-for-september-8-2022-thegamer/ It’s been a bit of a mad one today for very obvious reasons, but I’m here with the gaming news roundup to make everything seem normal again. Our first story today concerns Embracer, who recently announced that Deus Ex and Tomb Raider will now be controlled by Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics respectively. A former Sony manager also revealed that the PS5 was built with zero crunch after criticism over its latest system update and The Witcher 3’s current-gen version is still on track for a release later this year. You can find more details down below. Tomb Raider And Deus Ex Are Now Officially Owned By Crystal Dynamics And Eidos Montreal You may recall that Embracer Group recently purchased Eidos Montreal, Crystal Dynamics, and a series of iconic IP from Square Enix for a snip earlier this year. Today, Embracer has announced that the Deus Ex and Thief franchises are now controlled by Eidos Montreal and that the Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain franchises are now controlled by Crystal Dynamics. It’s unlikely these developers will be given free rein with these properties, but it’s nice to see them back in the hands of the creators instead of in Square Enix’s grubby mitts. via PlayStation Former Sony Manager Claims PS5 Launched Without Crunch PlayStation was recently criticised by Kotaku over its latest PS5 update, claiming newly added features should’ve launched with the system back in 2020. Well, former Sony product manager Steven Trombetta took issue with that viewpoint, claiming that “some things had to go” while building the console in order to keep the team from crunching during a global pandemic. Trombetta claims that “employee health was the priority” which it always should be. via CDPR CD Projekt Confirms The Witcher 3 Current-Gen Upgrade Still On Track For Later This Year The Witcher 3 fans are patiently awaiting the game’s current-gen release on PS5 and Xbox Series X after several delays pushed the title further and further back. With still no word on when the version will release, fans have started to worry that another delay is on the way, but a new post on the CD Projekt Red website has revealed the title is still on track for Q4 2022. Good news for us, bad news for our backlogs. Rumoured September Nintendo Direct May Have Been Delayed Due To The Queen’s Death News of the Queen of England’s death quickly swept the globe as several companies have called off upcoming events as a mark of respect. One of those companies may be Nintendo, as the recently rumored Nintendo Direct that is allegedly scheduled to take place later this month may have been delayed due the Queen’s passing. This comes from the same industry insiders that leaked the Direct in the first place, Jeff Grubb and Mike Minotti, who claim the Direct might be delayed, but are currently unsure on Nintendo’s decision. Velma Doesn’t Call The Cops Anymore In MultiVersus Finally, a bit more light-hearted news for you now, as MultiVersus fans have been celebrating the game’s new update and the addition of Gizmo to the roster. However, the main talking point of this new update that has fans hollering is a new change to Velma. Instead of calling the cops on opponents like a middle-class white woman, Velma will now call up the rest of the gang in the Mystery Machine to take people away, although what they do with them is a mystery we might not want to solve. Next: One Expansion Isn’t Enough For Cyberpunk 2077

High School Football Scoreboard – The Cross Timbers Gazette https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/high-school-football-scoreboard-the-cross-timbers-gazette/ Guyer 50, Lancaster 27 The Guyer Wildcats rolled past Lancaster on Thursday night. The Wildcats got on the board first when Jackson Arnold hit Josiah Martin on a 9-yard touchdown pass three minutes into the game. Lancaster tied it up just before the end of the quarter, and it was 7-7 heading into the second. Arnold scored on a 4-yard run early in the second quarter to regain the lead for the Wildcats, and with 2:01 remaining in the first half, Trey Joyner scored on a 2-yard run to make it 21-7 Guyer at the break. The Wildcats picked up a safety to start the third quarter and then Landon Sides returned a free kick 52 yards for a touchdown to make it 29-7 Guyer. Lancaster scored again, but Guyer came right back and scored on a 25-yard pass from Jackson to Si Stovall late in the third. Jackson and Stovall hooked up again on a 24-yard touchdown pass to make it 43-20, Guyer. Lancaster responded with a touchdown early in the fourth quarter, but three minutes later Trey Joyner scored on a 4-yard run to make it 50-20 Wildcats. Lancaster scored again with just under four minutes to play to make it 50-27 Guyer, but the Wildcats lead was never in danger. Arnold passed for 305 yards and 3 touchdowns and Ahmed Yussuf rushed for 126 yards in the game for Guyer. The Wildcats (3-0, 0-0) will open up district at 7 p.m. on Sept. 16 when they host Prosper. Jackson Arnold leads Denton Guyer to 50-27 win over Lancaster https://t.co/iJ0Ab3hTUu pic.twitter.com/2xp7HaBP4e — SBLive Texas (@SBLiveTX) September 9, 2022 Aledo 49, Northwest 20 Despite a late rally, the Northwest Texans came up short against Aledo on Thursday night. Starting quarterback Jake Strong was injured last week and sat out the game. The Bearcats took a 42-0 lead late into the second quarter before Leddie Thompson threw a 3-yard touchdown pass to Ife Durodoye to put Northwest on board before the half. With 5:26 to play in the third quarter, Northwest scored again on a 13-yard run from Kyle Cummings. Aledo scored a touchdown of its own midway through the fourth quarter, but Northwest answered with an 85-yard pass from Thompson to Kenan Reil to make it 49-20. Reil finished the game with 123 yards receiving and a touchdown. Northwest (1-2, 0-0) will open up district competition at 7 p.m. on Sept. 16 at Brewer. Please check back on Friday night for more local scores.

Hochul Announces Start Of 2022 Fall Foliage & Travel Season In New York – Niagara Frontier Publications https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/hochul-announces-start-of-2022-fall-foliage-travel-season-in-new-york-niagara-frontier-publications/ Thu, Sep 8th 2022 09:30 pm View weekly I LOVE NY fall foliage reports available every Wednesday, beginning Sept. 14, here Gov. Kathy Hochul announced the start of New York state’s 2022 fall foliage and travel season, highlighted by the return of I LOVE NY’s fall foliage reports and a new I LOVE NY broadcast and digital marketing campaign to showcase popular fall activities and attractions. I LOVE NY is also collaborating with the state’s network of heritage tourism destinations on this year’s “Path Through History Weekend,” scheduled for Oct. 8-10, which will feature special events and activations at the state’s rich history and historic sites. “From colorful foliage and unparalleled natural landscapes to breathtaking historical sites and one-of-a-kind state parks, there’s nothing like New York in the fall,” Hochul said. “During this season, we invite travelers from New York and out-of-state to plan a perfect autumn adventure – whether it’s climbing an Adirondack peak, visiting a Long Island winery, or walking along Buffalo’s waterfront – and see what our great state has to offer.” Hochul’s team said, “Fall is one of New York’s most popular travel seasons, attracting visitors from around the world who support local businesses while exploring the unique and diverse communities across the state.” To help travelers and foliage enthusiasts plan a fall getaway, I LOVE NY’s weekly foliage reports are issued every Wednesday, beginning Sept. 14. They are compiled using the on-location field observations from I LOVE NY’s team of more than 85 volunteer leaf spotters throughout the state’s 11 vacation regions. The spotters track color changes in their area, detailing the prevalent leaf colors, approximate percentage of change, and how much color change has progressed relative to peak conditions. The reports also include an interactive foliage map, available on the I LOVE NY website, that tracks weekly changes and progression across the state throughout the season. The map includes recommended foliage viewing locations in each of the state’s vacation regions, plus examples of peak foliage in a given area, and information about popular local and regional attractions. New this year, the interactive foliage map will include an option to filter attractions by category, including food and drink, and arts and culture. Travelers are invited to share their photos of New York’s picturesque foliage on social media by using the #NYLovesFall hashtag. Photos submitted to this hashtag have a chance of being featured on the I LOVE NY fall foliage website and official I LOVE NY social media accounts reaching more than 2 million followers. I LOVE NY recently launched a TikTok account to reach additional audiences, complementing its existing accounts on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Hochul’s team said, “Thanks in part to its size and location, New York state traditionally has one of the longest and most colorful foliage seasons in the country. On any weekend from late September through mid-November, part of the state is likely experiencing peak foliage. Fall foliage reports and the interactive map are available at www.iloveny.com/foliage, or toll-free at 800-CALL-NYS (800-225-5697) from anywhere in the U.S., its territories and Canada.” Empire State Development President, CEO and Commissioner Hope Knight said, “Tourism is a pillar of New York’s economy, and fall travel is especially vital to family farms and small businesses, which are the backbone of so many communities across the state. This season offers the perfect opportunity to explore and experience New York’s different regions, each with its own fall festivals, offerings and events that invite and welcome everyone.” ESD Vice President and Executive Director of Tourism Ross D. Levi said, “Every year, New York state becomes a wonderland of autumnal color. From our weekly foliage report letting travelers know where colors are peaking, to interactive maps helping them find attractions and dining experiences, to a running list of heritage events as part of ‘Path Through History Weekend,’ I LOVE NY is pleased to provide tools to help guests take full advantage of one of the longest and most beautiful foliage seasons in the country. We welcome explorers from near and far to come be a part of it all and discover an autumn to fall in love with here in New York state.” I LOVE NY is also launching a new fall marketing campaign to encourage fall travel, which includes a new 30-second spot highlighting some of the many ways to enjoy the season throughout New York. The ad includes family-friendly fall favorites, like harvest events at local farms, Halloween attractions, zoos and foliage hikes, plus destinations like the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, and New York City’s Central Park. The campaign launches today, and the ad can be viewed here. “Path Through History” will showcase some of the state’s historic and heritage travel sites. The initiative uses 14 themes to organize more than 700 sites, attractions and locations throughout the state. The “Path Through History” website includes maps, a user-friendly list of locations organized by theme and region, and an itinerary builder to help plan a trip. More information is available here. Hochul’s team said, “Visitation in New York state sustains an economic impact of $85.5 billion and generates enough in state and local taxes to save every household in the state more than $1,000 annually. Tourism and hospitality is the state’s third largest industry, supporting one in 11 private sector jobs.” Visit www.iloveny.com.

Trump Partner In Truth Social Delays Key Vote On Merger – Business News – Castanet.net https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/trump-partner-in-truth-social-delays-key-vote-on-merger-business-news-castanet-net/ Photo: The Canadian Press FILE – Former President Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Sept. 3, 2022. A key decision over whether Trump’s social media platform Truth Social will merge with a cash-rich company and get $1.3 billion to take on Twitter has been put off for another month. The potential partner, Digital World Acquisition Corp., on Thursday, Sept. 8, 2022, postponed a shareholder vote to extend by a year a deadline to close its merger with Trump’s company and release funds to pay its bills. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer, File) A key decision over whether Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social will merge with a cash-rich company and get $1.3 billion to take on Twitter has been put off for another month. The potential partner, Digital World Acquisition Corp., on Thursday postponed a shareholder vote to extend by a year a deadline to close its merger with Trump’s company and release funds to pay its bills. At least 65% of shareholders need to approve the extension, a threshold not reached in tallies earlier in the day. Shares of Miami-based Digital World, which have been generally falling after small-pocketed investors pushed them over $100 last year, closed Thursday up 1% to $23.35. If a new deal deadline isn’t approved at a shareholder meeting on Oct. 10, Digital World can still play for time. It can delay the deadline by three months if sponsors backing its company pay nearly $3 million into a trust account, then delay again for another three months for the same payment. The company has said previously it would chose to delay three months if necessary. If the deal is not closed by the new deadlines, Digital World must liquidate and Truth Social’s parent, Trump Media & Technology Group, will have to find other sources of cash. It could do that by borrowing, finding private investors, or having Trump himself contribute the money, something he has avoided in many of his business ventures but has hinted he might do. “I don’t need financing, ‘I’m really rich,'” Trump posted on Truth Social earlier this month. “Private company anyone???” Digital World’s deal with Trump’s company was troubled almost from the start. In November, the Securities and Exchange Commission requested documents from Digital World following news reports that it had talked with Trump representatives about joining forces before selling its own stock to the public for the first time, a possible violation of security rules. Digital World and Trump’s business have also been subpoenaed in a federal criminal probe. The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is looking into violations of stock trading rules, too. The SEC probe in particular is a serious setback for the company because the agency needs to sign off on the Digital World-Trump merger for it to go through. Trump has called the investigations politically motivated “witch hunts.” A merger would release to Trump Media $290 million held by Digital World and another $1 billion that private investors had committed to the combined company. Until then, Trump’s company is on its own, paying staff, leases and other expenses from $36 million raised from sales of promissory notes last year and earlier this year. Truth Social was launched as a free speech, “big tent” alternative to Twitter after Trump was banned by the platform following last year’s Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Trump rarely posted on the app in the weeks after it was launched in February, but now is regularly sending his version of tweets — called truths — to rally supporters following the FBI seizure of confidential government documents at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida last month. In the proposed merger, Trump is hoping to cash in on a recent investing trend involving risky shell companies called special purchase acquisition companies, or SPACs, that have no product or service to sell and are set up solely to merge with a business with one. Once wildly popular, stocks of many highflying SPACs have plunged in price and many others have been liquidated without completing mergers. SPACs, also called blank-check companies, are allowed a quick path to go public without many disclosures but only if they have not yet had substantial discussion with a possible merger partner, a possible focus of the Digital World investigations. “The SEC has needlessly delayed its review of our proposed merger, causing real and unnecessary financial harm” to investors, said Trump Media in a statement. “The SEC needs to set aside any improper political considerations and bring its review to a swift conclusion.”

Self-Care Management For Hypertension | JMDH – Dove Medical Press https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/self-care-management-for-hypertension-jmdh-dove-medical-press/ Plain Language Summary In SEA countries where the prevalence of hypertension is sharply increasing, there are few relevant studies on how patients perform their self-care management practices. The studies that have been completed indicate that many hypertensive people have significant behavioral risk factors for heart disease and stroke despite the common medical advice to address these risk factors through self-care management practices, Irwan et al in their review, found a prevalence rate of 50% or more of hypertension people being overweight/obese, having poor physical exercise and low-quality dietary intake, and not adhering to medication. They also found variation in the facilitators and barriers to implementing self-care practices, including personal choices and cultural influence. This information is useful for nurses suggesting that nurses working in the community in SEA countries should consider a multi-focused approach and cultural aspect in helping hypertensive patients manage their self-care and risk reduction practices. Introduction Hypertension is a major chronic disease among adults affecting 1 in 4 men and 1 in 5 women representing over one billion people worldwide.1 The American Heart Association defines hypertension as the systolic blood pressure readings of ≥130 mmHg and/the diastolic blood pressure readings of ≥80 mmHg.2 It is considered a primary risk factor for stroke, heart disease, and kidney failure.3 To reduce the incidence of and to provide better management of hypertension, several self-care activities are recommended by the 8th Joint National Commission including medication adherence, bodyweight management, dietary intake, alcohol consumption, tobacco cessation, and physical exercise.4,5 Modification of lifestyle risk factors addressed through healthy self-care management activities is now a fundamental part of treatment recommendations, as people who implement such self-care strategies have shown a decrease in blood pressure, increase adherence to antihypertensive medications, reductions in complications and in overall mortality rate associated with hypertension.6 Numerous reviews of self-care management for hypertension have been done regarding the experimental approach to lifestyle intervention provided through the research protocol.7–9 While important to understand the efficacy of the intervention, these studies do not address the self-care management initiated and sustained by people in their naturalistic settings. Few studies address potential facilitating and inhibiting factors in practicing self-care management for hypertension. In addition, the majority of studies reviewed were conducted in Western countries.7–9 Different cultures, lifestyles, and food preferences in SEA countries will affect the use and success of self-care management of hypertension. In SEA countries, the prevalence of hypertension has been sharply increasing for the past two decades.10 In a recent study, there was a reported increase of one-third of the adult population with hypertension in SEA annually.11 SEA countries are currently experiencing rapid modernization and fast-changing lifestyle, conditions contributing to the high prevalence of hypertension.10 However, little is known about the self-care management practices of these populations. The previous review by Nawi et al focused on the prevalence and risk factors of hypertension in the urban area without emphasizing current self-care management for hypertension.11 Understanding the self-care management of people with hypertension is crucial to determine gaps and potential points of intervention to strengthen their use and effectiveness. Therefore, we conducted a scoping review to explore and map the current state of self-care and lifestyle management activities among people with hypertension in SEA countries. Secondarily, we reviewed the retrieved articles for facilitating and inhibiting factors to the reported self-care management practices. The anticipated outcome of such a scoping review is to better understand the current state of self-care practices for hypertension management in SEA. This information will be useful in designing future studies. Methods The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-SCR) was utilized to optimize reporting and increase fidelity (Supplementary File 1). The review was conducted using the guidelines of Scoping Review Frameworks.12 In addition, The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-SCR) was utilized to optimize reporting and increase fidelity.13 The study protocol has been registered at Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/s4nvk/). We utilized the five stages of Scoping Review Frameworks as indicated below. Stage 1: Research Question The research question raised by this scoping review was: What type of self-care management strategies do hypertensive people in SEA countries use to control their blood pressure where SEA countries include Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, and East Timor? Stage 2: Relevant Studies and Search Terms The review explored the current state of self-care management practices used by hypertension populations based on evidence from the existing scientific literature for SEA. Because “lifestyle change” and “self-care management” are often used interchangeably in reported studies, we used both terms to identify relevant studies.14–16 Furthermore, specific emphasis was focused on the application of general self-care management techniques practiced across cultures and their geo-socio-political nuances with emphasis on the SEA context. We used ten data bases used in this scoping review. An initial search was conducted to retrieve titles, abstracts, and content to identify terms and key words including alternative aliases across languages and cultures. Table 1 displays the key words and phrases used in the search. In addition, references in the Google Scholar search engine were sought for additional articles that may have been missed in the previous database searches. Table 1 Keywords for Databases The inclusion and exclusion criteria for the scoping review was based on Population Concept Context (PCC) model17 and are listed in Table 2. The definition of hypertension is as defined by the author(s) of the studies. The review included both qualitative and quantitative primary data studies. Review, intervention, study protocol papers, and pregnancy-induced hypertension populations were not included. The search was limited to full-text articles published in English and Bahasa from 2006 to 2021. Fifteen years was chosen as the time window of the search as that coincides with the recent rise in prevalence of hypertension in SEA countries. Table 2 Eligibility Criteria for Articles Stage 3: Study Selection Study Extraction from Databases Figure 1 illustrates the process, screening results, and criteria for manuscript extraction once the initial search was completed based on the study inclusion and exclusion criteria. To summarize, from the 10 databases, 1667 relevant abstracts were collected and 41 additional manuscripts were identified through Google Scholar. After the removal of duplication of articles, 1668 articles remained. Furthermore, titles were screened for their relevance resulting in 167 articles for further screening. Of these, 125 articles were categorized as directly related to the research question, followed by full article reading and study abstraction. Third-stage searching was also conducted by screening reference list from the articles selected by reading full text resulting in an additional 20 articles. Articles were then excluded that were not relevant to the hypertension, not self-care management, not in SEA, or were an intervention, a study protocol, or were a literature review. This selection process resulted in the final inclusion of 57 primary research studies in the analysis. Figure 1 PRISMA flowchart. Notes: Adapted from Tricco AC, Lillie E, Zarin W et al. PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR): Checklist and Explanation. Ann Intern Med.2018;169(7);467–473.13 Reliability of Study Extraction All abstracts identified from the article search were downloaded to Mendeley software reference manager and exported following de-duplication into the Rayyan software program.18 To ensure inter-rater reliability of articles screened using exclusion and inclusion criteria was established by two reviewer random samples of 25 articles in English language (AMI and KP) for sampling of titles, abstracts, and full texts using JBI Manual methods.17 There was disagreement in 5% of articles which was resolved in reviewer discussion to reach 100% agreement at each sampling stage. Stage 4: The Data Data were extracted to include important information, encompassing the study site, study design, aim, sample, and main findings. Variable measured are listed in Tables 3 and 4. Table 4 Articles Exploring Self-Care Management for Hypertension (Qualitative Studies) Stage 5: Thematic Summary and Key Findings Inductive thematic analysis, informed by the work of Braun and Clarke19 across studies, was used to identify emerging key themes. This entails familiarization with each research finding and generating initial codes. These codes were then refined to arrive at the final themes reported in the paper. Ethical Considerations This study was exempt from review by the Institutional Review Board for Human Subjects (IRB) because only de-identifiable data is revealed in the articles reviewed. Study Characteristics Across the 57 included studies, more than half (thirty studies) were conducted in Indonesia, seven...

UFC 279 Press Conference Canceled After Backstage Incident – USA TODAY https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/ufc-279-press-conference-canceled-after-backstage-incident-usa-today/ Nolan King and Ken Hathaway  |  MMA Junkie LAS VEGAS – The UFC 279 pre-fight press conference was canceled mid-session Thursday due to a “big (expletive) show” backstage, company president Dana White said.  White explained to a booing crowd before he walked off stage that the decision was “for everybody’s safety, this is the right decision.” Initially, there was a lengthy delay – not an irregular practice when stars like Nate Diaz are involved. However, UFC staff also shuffled the name tags about, as Diaz, Khamzat Chimaev, Tony Ferguson, Li Jingliang, Kevin Holland, and Daniel Rodriguez were scheduled to appear. The latter two were the only ones to appear, however. They took the stage with White, who announced to the crowd that initially fighters would be brought out in pairs. Holland and Rodriguez fielded a few questions and were squared off, after Holland, like White, declined to give significant comment on what went down. Sign up for our sports newsletter: All the sports news you need to know delivered right to you! After Holland and Rodriguez were escorted off the stage, there was visible conflict from White, who looked to his staffers for a sign of what was to come next. It appeared Chimaev and Diaz should be next, but after an interjection from White’s personal security guard, White said, “(Expletive) it. Wrap. Wrap it.” White continued into the microphone, “Yeah, this ain’t going to happen. I apologize, everybody. I am in very weird waters here. This has never happened in the history of this company. Let me tell you this is the right decision not to do this press conference right now. Yeah, I hear you. I’m with you. But for everybody’s safety, this is the right decision. I apologize.” In an impromptu media availability staged later Thursday at MGM Grand Garden Arena, White shed a little more light about what happened.  “Let me just start out by saying I’m not going to tell everybody what went on back here,” White began.  “Multiple crazy – I don’t even know what to call it. However many years, 22 years, however long I’ve been doing this, we’ve never had an incident like today. All hell broke loose out here. I don’t even know how to (say it). We stopped it, but we didn’t do a good job of not letting (it) happen. I just don’t know.” White described the scene as “very physical” with “lots going on” backstage, which is why he ultimately decided to call off the press event mid-session. Objects were allegedly thrown. Initially, the plan shifted from bringing all six fighters out at once to bringing them out in pairs. However, after Holland and Rodriguez answered a few questions from media, White decided to shut the whole thing down because altercations reignited backstage. “We figured two-by-two would work,” White said. “We were wrong.” White said four fighters total were involved and confirmed tweets from MMA reporter Ariel Helwani that Kevin Holland and Khamzat Chimaev were first to engage before a domino effect of exchanges with other fighters. Holland and Chimaev have had run-ins in the past at the UFC Performance Institute and a fighter hotel, between numerous insults hurled at news conferences and interviews. Somehow, the Diaz camp was involved, as well. Diaz, who showed up with a crowd of approximately 25 people to media day Wednesday, rolled in with a similar crowd Thursday. The sheer amount of people backstage made for a tricky situation, White explained. “The Diaz camp showed up with 57 people. Khamzat’s team had 30-something people. Then you had multiple guys going on back here. It was crazy,” White said. “It was absolutely nuts back here. … You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out where this whole press conference was headed.” White reiterated the fights scheduled for UFC 279 are not currently in jeopardy and that he expects an added security presence for tomorrow’s ceremonial weigh-ins and faceoffs. “We come here with a skeleton crew for the press conferences,” White said. “There aren’t nearly as many people as there are for the ceremonial weigh-ins. We’ll have tons of security, Metro, it’s a totally different ball game. “… This will never happen again.” UFC 279 takes place Saturday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The main card airs on pay-per-view following prelims on ESPNEWS and early prelims on ESPN+.

New Metaverse Project, Battle Infinity, Gives Investors Over 300 Percent Returns On Launch: The Next Axie Infinity? – Dot Esports https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/new-metaverse-project-battle-infinity-gives-investors-over-300-percent-returns-on-launch-the-next-axie-infinity-dot-esports/ This article is sponsored by Battle Infinity. When it comes to investing in cryptocurrency, the best Metaverse crypto projects are some of the top assets to buy for growth potential. Throughout this guide, we’ll be taking a look at a new Metaverse project that has already given investors returns of over 300 percent and could grow to be the next Axie Infinity. Let’s get started.  What is Battle Infinity? Battle Infinity (IBAT) is a new Metaverse DeFi project with the potential to unseat Axie Infinity as the best Metaverse crypto on the market.  Image via Battle Infinity The project has already proven to be a big hit with investors. During the Battle Infinity presale, more than 16,500 BNB was raised, with the presale concluding a massive 65 days ahead of expectations.  Following its presale, IBAT was listed on PancakeSwap, where it surged by over 300 percent from presale prices. Even today, IBAT is still trading for multiple times its presale price, making it one of the best new cryptocurrency projects of the year.  The Battle Infinity ecosystem is packed with features spanning a wide range of sectors. As such, it has the potential to attract a huge number of users which would, in turn, boost the demand for IBAT substantially.  In contrast to the majority of new crypto projects that offer big promises but lack the means to achieve them, Battle Infinity offers both a large range of useful features and a clear plan for how the project will develop. This is an excellent sign for the long-term growth of the Battle Infinity ecosystem.  Screengrab via CoinMarketCap All in all, Battle Infinity is an excellent project that blends some of the most popular features in cryptocurrency. With features constantly rolling out, it’s worth checking out Battle Infinity today and joining the IBAT Telegram to stay updated with any developments.   Battle Infinity’s core features Now that we’ve taken a brief look at what Battle Infinity is, it’s time to delve deeper into the different features offered by the next Axie Infinity.  Play-to-earn gaming Play-to-earn games provide players with the opportunity to earn crypto rewards for simply enjoying and progressing in a game. Typically, P2E games use non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to allow for the easy buying, selling, and trading of assets.  Image via Battle Infinity Being one of the hottest gaming crypto projects currently available, Battle Infinity boasts play-to-earn (P2E) elements that both reward and engage users. This will help Battle Infinity stay relevant for the long term rather than slowly fizzling out as a result of boring or poorly implemented earning mechanics like Axie Infinity. One feature that promises to be a huge hit with users is a fantasy sports league called the IBAT Premier League. Similar platforms like Dream11 and Mobile Premier League have both amassed nearly 100 million users, so if Battle Infinity can capture even a fraction of that user count, it could become the best Metaverse crypto to buy.  The IBAT Premier League will initially roll out with support for cricket to build a strong rapport with the Asia-Pacific gamers as they make up the majority of global players. But later down the road, Battle Infinity will announce support for additional sports like hockey, football, and basketball.  Image via Battle Infinity In addition to a fantasy sports league, Battle Infinity will also feature a collection of NFT-based P2E player-vs-player games. To take part in an IBAT Battle Game, the player must stake a number of tokens in IBAT Battle Stake. The player that wins will receive the combined stake minus 10 percent, which is split among development and the stake pool. The Metaverse The Metaverse is a virtual world that allows players to interact with one another. Typically (but not always), a Metaverse will offer support for virtual reality headsets to improve immersion. There is no fixed definition of what a Metaverse world must contain, so different Metaverse worlds can vary greatly in their purpose and design.  As one of the top competitors to Axie Infinity, Battle Infinity naturally features exquisitely designed Metaverse elements. The IBAT Battle Arena is a detailed Metaverse world that allows players to communicate with each other and even attend exclusive events like concerts and parties.  Players in the IBAT Battle Arena each have unique upgradeable avatars. By purchasing NFT-based items from the Battle Infinity store, players can customize their avatars with a great level of detail. Some examples of items that can be added to an avatar include hair, clothes, and accessories like hats or sunglasses.  Decentralized finance Another massively popular trend in cryptocurrency at the moment is decentralized finance (DeFi). It gives crypto enthusiasts the ability to take control of their finances rather than being limited by third parties. Image via Battle Infinity Battle Infinity boasts a wide range of DeFi features, one of the most notable being an NFT marketplace named the IBAT Battle Market. It allows people to sell their in-game items as well as create entirely new collections, making it a great asset to the IBAT ecosystem. In addition to the Battle Market, Battle Infinity boasts an in-built decentralized exchange named IBAT Battle Swap, as well as a dedicated staking platform that users can use to earn rewards by simply locking IBAT or other cryptos for a predetermined amount of time.  Combined, these features help to make Battle Infinity one of the year’s best new crypto projects. The IBAT ecosystem provides an immense amount of intrinsic value for its users, meaning it’s one of the hottest cryptos to buy right now and could even be the next penny cryptocurrency to explode. Battle Infinity vs. Axie Infinity  When taking a look at popular crypto games, it’s clear that DeFi, the Metaverse, and P2E gaming synergize well, making the IBAT ecosystem a force to be reckoned with. In contrast to Axie Infinity, Battle Infinity features a massive amount of features, yet gives its users the ability to decide which they wish to use, making the platform far more accessible.  While it’s all well and good to look at the features offered by Axie Infinity and Battle Infinity, it’s also crucial to take a look at the returns they’ve offered investors. Within the past year, AXS (Axie Infinity’s token) has decreased in value by 84.91 percent, whereas IBAT (Battle Infinity’s token) has increased by a staggering 184 percent (although this figure was over 300 percent during launch). While Axie Infinity and Battle Infinity may seem similar on the surface, they are in very different stages. While Axie’s player count is dwindling and the AXS token is struggling, Battle Infinity is resonating with both investors and users.  Right now, a large number of Battle Infinity’s features are still unreleased, so it’s likely that IBAT could grow even more over the coming months. Furthermore, while AXS is listed on most major exchanges, IBAT is just beginning its listing campaign. As such, it could be worth stocking up on tokens before new listing announcements launch IBAT to the moon.  While it’s clear that Battle Infinity seems well prepared to overtake Axie Infinity, a different NFT game, Alien Worlds, is also gaining traction and is worth keeping an eye on. How to buy IBAT For anyone wondering how to buy Metaverse crypto projects, we’ve got you covered. We’ve provided a detailed step-by-step below. Step one: Create LBank Account To purchase IBAT, an investor needs to first create an account with the LBank exchange. The registration process is simple and straightforward, with only basic details required.  Screengrab via LBank Step 2: Buy USDT  Before buying IBAT, an investor first needs to get their hands on some USDT. This can be done by clicking “Buy Crypto,” deciding which payment method to use, considering how much to invest (check the current IBAT price prior), and confirming the deposit by pressing “Place Order.” Screengrab via LBank Step 3: Search for IBAT Next, we need to find the correct pair. Simply click “Markets,”  search for “IBAT,” and select the IBAT/USDT pair.  Screengrab via LBank Step 4: Buy IBAT with USDT To complete the purchase, decide whether to use a limit (you decide price) or market (fulfills at current price) order, consider how much IBAT is desired, and press “Buy IBAT” to confirm the order. The tokens will then be near-instantly (or once the price has been reached for limit orders) added to the account.   Screengrab via LBank You can learn more about Battle Infinity by visiting its website.

School Districts’ Legal Battle With Juul Isn’t Over – Education Week https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/school-districts-legal-battle-with-juul-isnt-over-education-week/ The $438.5 million settlement announced this week between e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. and more than 30 states will require changes to the company’s marketing practices that allegedly target youths. But it does not resolve separate litigation brought by hundreds of school districts that contend they have been harmed by the rapid rise of student vaping. The school district lawsuits have been consolidated in federal district court in San Francisco, and what is known as the “bellwether” case of that category—the one brought by the San Francisco Unified School District—is scheduled to go to trial in November. A separate category of so-called multidistrict litigation claims involves personal injury suits brought by Juul users, and the trial for a Tennessee teenager who first began using the company’s e-cigarettes at age 12 is scheduled to go to trial this month. “Settlements occur party by party, so settling with the states is not going to affect litigations brought by other entities such as school boards and cities, because the other entities are asserting different harms,” said Heidi Li Feldman, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington who is an expert on torts and product-liability litigation. The separate lawsuits by school districts are an indication of lessons learned from the big multistate settlement with tobacco companies in the 1990s, which funneled money to state governments but left out cities, counties, and school districts. “I think the legacy of the tobacco litigation prompted municipalities and school boards to be more on their toes to make sure that harms particular to them were addressed by resolution of any lawsuits against a business,” Feldman said. Juul agrees to end marketing to youths, but faces a number of legal challenges The settlement between Juul and 33 states and Puerto Rico was announced Tuesday by Connecticut Attorney General William Tong. He said the states’ investigation revealed that the San Francisco-based company “relentlessly marketed vaping products to underage youth, manipulated their chemical composition to be palatable to inexperienced users, employed an inadequate age verification process, and misled consumers about the nicotine content and addictiveness of its products.” As part of the settlement, Juul has agreed to refrain from youth marketing including the use of cartoons, depicting people younger than 35 in ads, hiring young social media influencers, and offering free samples. Juul has separately reached settlements with four other states and faces additional cases brought by nine state attorneys general. The company is also appealing a June order from the federal Food and Drug Administration that Juul pull its products from the market. But that settlement “is entirely separate from the ongoing federal Multi-District Litigation (MDL) where hundreds of lawsuits brought by school districts remain ongoing,” Jonathan P. Kieffer, a partner with the Kansas City, Mo., law firm of Wagstaff & Cartwell, which organized many of the school district suits and represents the San Francisco district in the bellwether case, said in an email. The firm filed a 315-page amended complaint in that case in March, adding new allegations based on evidence from a lengthy discovery process. Juul and certain other defendants “targeted kids as their customer base,” the suit says. “JUUL products were designed to appear slick and high-tech like a cool gadget, including video-game-like features like ‘party mode.’ [Juul] offered kid-friendly flavors like mango and cool mint, … all because defendants knew that flavors get young people hooked. Under the guise of youth smoking prevention, [Juul] sent representatives directly to schools to study teenager e-cigarette preferences.” The complaint cites evidence that a Juul representative told 9th graders in a 2018 presentation that the company’s product was “much safer than cigarettes” and was “totally safe.” The lawsuit details problems the rapid increase of vaping caused for schools. “E-cigarette use has completely changed school bathrooms—now known as ‘the Juul room,’” the suit says. “As one high school student explained, ‘it’s just a cloud.’” The suit said the San Francisco school district has had to create programs to address student e-cigarette use and divert staff resources to monitor school restrooms, among other harms. Juul argues that the San Francisco school district suit is unsupported by the evidence. In a motion for summary judgment filed in the schools case in August, Juul said the amended complaint filed by the San Francisco district shows that the suit’s initial allegations were not supported by discovery. “SFUSD has no fact witnesses, no documents, and no experts that can quantify any harm that SFUSD experienced due to JUUL products,” the Juul filing says. The motion says the San Francisco district is seeking a multi-hundred-million dollar award (the specific amount is blacked out in the public version of the document) to establish its own public health system. “SFUSD … proposes that it be awarded hundreds of millions of dollars to dictate public-health strategy for one of the most populous regions of Northern California and that JLI—only one industry player, and now not even the largest one—pay for all of it,” Juul’s motion says. The San Francisco district will file an answer to Juul’s summary judgment motion next week, Kieffer said. Feldman, the Georgetown law professor, said Juul’s settlement with the states does not necessarily strengthen the hand of the school district plaintiffs in their separate suits against the e-cigarette maker. “When defendants settle, part of what they are doing is trying to limit the amount of money they pay out from the same underlying actions,” she said. But the settlement with states may also be an indication that Juul would be willing to reach some kind of settlement with plaintiffs in the consolidated cases in the multidistrict litigation, she added. “That’s a business decision” for the company, she said. Mark Walsh covers education law and the U.S. Supreme Court for Education Week.

Crypto Influencer Cooper Turley Creates $10M ‘Coop Records’ Music Startup Fund – CoinDesk https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/crypto-influencer-cooper-turley-creates-10m-coop-records-music-startup-fund-coindesk/ Cameron Thompson is a news reporter at CoinDesk. Cryptocurrency influencer and NFT song collector Cooper Turley is spinning up a $10 million fund to invest in artists and startup founders bringing crypto and music together. His so-called Coop Records – backed by crypto culture influence brokers from Audius to OpenSea – will seek to solve what Turley sees as a big problem in the modern music industry: Labels and streaming services hold all the power; artists lack autonomy over their creative work. Turley’s trying to change that with non-fungible tokens (NFTs). “The biggest word I think of when it comes to Web3 is ownership. So, if you create value for a network, you should be able to capture that value in the form of a token or some sort of NFT,” Turley told CoinDesk in a phone call. Coop Records will take that notion of ownership and apply it across the music development stack. In a blog post announcing the fund, Turley wrote of a future where artists can raise money and profit off their work without selling their songs to a record label – perhaps by instead selling ownership of their music-creating company in tokenized form. In a Twitter thread Thursday, Turley said that his fund will act as an incubator, venture capital firm and record label all in one, supporting artists in making profitable Web3 technologies of their work. Its “Artist Seed Rounds” will help artists find funders who believe in their work. His vision for the future of Web3 and music is one where artists can create viable fan communities around their careers. “There’s never really been a way for me to see collective ownership over that artist’s success,” said Turley, speaking of “a way for me to kind of have that sort of proof-of-fandom asset that represents some exposure to that artist’s career.” The fund launch is the latest turn by a man deeply embedded in crypto’s cultural scene. In addition to being a prolific investor in crypto music startups, Turley was a co-founder and key promoter of the online social club Friends With Benefits DAO. He was removed from the organization in January after racist tweets from years earlier surfaced. Sign up for Market Wrap, our daily newsletter explaining what happened today in crypto markets – and why. By signing up, you will receive emails about CoinDesk product updates, events and marketing and you agree to our terms of services and privacy policy. DISCLOSURE Please note that our privacy policy, terms of use, cookies, and do not sell my personal information has been updated. The leader in news and information on cryptocurrency, digital assets and the future of money, CoinDesk is a media outlet that strives for the highest journalistic standards and abides by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk is an independent operating subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which invests in cryptocurrencies and blockchain startups. As part of their compensation, certain CoinDesk employees, including editorial employees, may receive exposure to DCG equity in the form of stock appreciation rights, which vest over a multi-year period. CoinDesk journalists are not allowed to purchase stock outright in DCG. Cameron Thompson is a news reporter at CoinDesk. Cameron Thompson is a news reporter at CoinDesk.

At The U.S. Open, Ons Jabeur Cruises To The Women’s Final – The New York Times https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/at-the-u-s-open-ons-jabeur-cruises-to-the-womens-final-the-new-york-times/ Jabeur, who lost this year’s Wimbledon final, will get another chance to win her first Grand Slam singles title after beating Caroline Garcia of France in straight sets. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. Ons Jabeur is through to her second straight Grand Slam singles final.Credit…Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times Sept. 8, 2022Updated 9:24 p.m. ET It has been a breakthrough year, and Ons Jabeur, whom her fellow Tunisians have nicknamed the Minister of Happiness, brought some more sunshine to her country and her season on Thursday night. Her opponent in the U.S. Open women’s singles semifinals was Caroline Garcia, a French player with the hottest hand in tennis. But Jabeur met the moment with power and precision; with variety and guile. She won the first set in 23 minutes as Garcia pressed and Jabeur slammed aces and chipped backhands that skidded low on the blue Arthur Ashe Stadium hardcourt. She closed out the match, 6-1, 6-3, in just 66 minutes, stopping Garcia’s 13-match winning streak and punctuating the rout with a shout and a tumble before rising quickly to embrace Garcia, a friend, at the net. Jabeur, who is good company as well as an increasingly great tennis player, has many friends on tour. And there is much to celebrate. After reaching her first Grand Slam singles final in July at Wimbledon, where she lost to Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, Jabeur has followed that up with a run to the final in New York, where she will face the winner of Thursday’s second semifinal between No. 1 Iga Swiatek of Poland and No. 6 Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus. “Two in a row feels amazing,” Jabeur said in her on-court interview. “After Wimbledon, there was a lot of pressure on me, and I’m really relieved that I can back up my results.” Jabeur, seeded fifth after being ranked as high as No. 2 earlier this year, is not only a symbol for Tunisia. She is a symbol for a region and a continent as the first Arab and African woman to reach a U.S. Open singles final. “I take it as a great privilege and as good pressure for me,” she said in a recent interview. “I love that I have that kind of support, and I always try to be positive in my life and see even bad things in a positive way. I don’t just play for myself. I play also for my country.” But the goal, as Jabeur’s poised and relentless performance made clear Thursday night, is a first major title. She has made her serve a bigger weapon and though Garcia leads the tour in aces this season, Jabeur had the edge on Thursday, finishing with eight aces to Garcia’s two. Though her first-serve percentage was below 50 percent, she won 83 percent of the points when she put her first serve in play while Garcia, who played far below the level she had shown in recent weeks, struggled to win points quickly with her serve. Garcia finished with 23 unforced errors and just 12 winners despite her aggressive tactics. Jabeur had 21 winners and 15 unforced errors. “She knows now where she’s going, and she knows now what she wants,” said Melanie Maillard, a French performance psychologist who has worked with Jabeur since 2016. “She’s given herself the means. She’s dedicated and so determined.” Image Jabeur was poised and relentless, closing out the match in 66 minutes.Credit…Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times It has been a long and challenging process for Jabeur, 28, to believe that someone from a modest background and a nation that had never produced a top-10 tennis player could hit the highest notes in a global sport. She spent long stretches training in France and away from home despite her close connections with her family and her roots. But Jabeur knew what she had been hearing since her youth about her talent: her innate feel for the ball; her capacity to create angles and change speeds and spins, even on the move. “I’ve always believed in mental coaching,” Jabeur said. “I had a mental coach since the age of maybe 12 or 13, long before Melanie, but we’ve been working together with Melanie for a long time, and I’m very lucky I found the right person who could push me through and know me much better. It’s all about the connection between both of us. We did a great job, and we’ve come a long way. But I’ve always been someone who believed in the importance of mental health.” As at Wimbledon, Maillard was in Jabeur’s player box on Thursday night alongside Jabeur’s coach, Issam Jellali, and Jabeur’s husband, Karim Kamoun, who is also her fitness trainer. “She sacrificed many things since she was little to experience this adventure,” Maillard said in an interview with the French newspaper L’Équipe this week. “She needed to feel that she could make progress in terms of her self-confidence, to believe completely in her project. She sensed clearly that she had something special. She had been told that since she was young, but she could not quite feel it herself. ” Though Thursday’s duel in Ashe Stadium represented new ground for Jabeur and Garcia — neither had been in a U.S. Open semifinal — it also was a flashback. They were junior rivals who played in the U.S. Open girls event in 2010 in the quarterfinals and also played in three other junior Grand Slam events. Jabeur won all those matches and has now beaten Garcia three times on the pro tour, all in major tournaments. Garcia said that though Jabeur’s spin and variety clearly posed her problems, she was not thinking back during Thursday’s defeat: more just struggling in the present to find solutions and let her game flow freely. “It helped and not at the same time,” Jabeur said of her long-running head-to-head edge. “Because I know she was playing amazing tennis, and that puts a lot of pressure on you.”

False Alarm Prompts Lockdown At Morris County Tech – TAPinto.net https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/false-alarm-prompts-lockdown-at-morris-county-tech-tapinto-net/ False Alarm Prompts Lockdown at Morris County Tech  TAPinto.net

Gaming And Esports In APAC And Beyond: Q&A With Asim Rehman, Digital Turbine – ExchangeWire https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/gaming-and-esports-in-apac-and-beyond-qa-with-asim-rehman-digital-turbine-exchangewire/ Ahead of ATS Singapore 2022, Asim Rehman, VP demand operation & supply APAC at Digital Turbine, gives an overview of the current gaming and esports landscape in APAC and beyond, and asserts that the future of both lies in mobile. How popular are gaming and esports in APAC? Gaming and esports have seen a significant uptick globally over the past couple of years as people turned to both for distraction and social interaction during repeated periods of lockdown. The surge in video gaming’s popularity, in combination with the continued proliferation of mobile usage in emerging markets and rising awareness amongst brands of the opportunities afforded by esports, is estimated to see the global esports market climb to USD ~$12.5bn (~£10.8bn) by 2030. APAC is no exception and has been leading the charge for esports for some time: the region is estimated to have accounted for 51% of global esports viewership in 2017 and 57% two years later. That’s hardly surprising, given Asia’s leading role in the cultural and technological development of gaming. APAC’s global share of the esports market is only expected to grow, with China (which currently accounts for almost a third of global esports revenue) and South Korea expected to be at the forefront of this expansion.  Despite being enjoyed across platforms, mobile is the primary frontier for gamers in APAC, unlike other regions where PC and console command the greatest share. Asia boasts the most mobile gamers globally, with almost 1.3 billion as of 2021. How big an opportunity do gaming and esports present to marketers in the region? Gaming continues to present a significant opportunity for marketers in APAC and across the world. This is particularly true of mobile gaming, which has drawn more revenue globally than PC and console combined, accounting for half of gaming. With more people than ever enjoying and investing money and time in games on mobile devices, the platform represents a prime opportunity for advertisers and marketers to reach their target audiences in the region.  Mobile gaming ticks all the essential boxes for brands and is more consistently accurate than any other advertising surface. On mobile, advertisers know that their ads will be seen by a real person in a safe environment, drive brand uplift, and have the tools to measure viewability and understand consumer sentiment.  Therefore, mobile gaming offers prime inventory for brands. And marketers are recognising this – from our position as a preferred SDK partner for several apps (many owned by the world’s leading mobile gaming app publishers), Digital Turbine has seen first-hand how advertisers are experimenting with the channel. The awareness of this opportunity is also reflected by the fact that foremost marketing and advertising companies, such as Omnicom Group, have launched dedicated gaming groups and teams.  The rise of esports has produced new avenues for brands to connect with their customers, and many are already exploring this opening. As of 2022, 69% of esports revenue is derived from sponsorships and advertising, with high-profile brands like KitKat and T-Mobile signing up as official partners of esports leagues and gaming tournaments. How are brands already utilising the mobile gaming vertical? Globally, almost every leading brand has incorporated gaming into its marketing mix by now. A lot are investing heavily in mobile gaming inventory, which includes ad formats ranging from rewarded video (which are opt-in by nature), to playable ads (which are highly engaging), to in-play ads (which are non-intrusive but rarely clickable/tappable).  Over the past few years, Digital Turbine has been working with brands to help them discover the benefits of advertising in mobile gaming, and more and more are recognising its value. Our DT Creative Labs services have worked on numerous projects to create ad campaigns dedicated to the mobile environment (such as a recent, gamified French’s Mustard campaign). While interest is high, brands are still adapting to mobile alongside other advertising avenues. One tactic we’ve seen is brands repurposing their TV ad on mobile. Using the same creative is a quick way to showcase the brand; the mobile execution provides an opportunity to create a gamification experience within the ad environment to make it more captivating and engaging for the audience.  What key challenges are currently impacting advertising within these verticals? Following a period of ballooning, gaming’s rise is beginning to slow following the easing of restrictions and some signs of a global recession. This deceleration could make some brands slightly wary of exploring the medium, but it’s important to note that, for now, at least, gaming and esports are still growing. The same is true for mobile: its growth has become more modest compared to two years ago, but app store spending in Asia is still forecast to rise 8% to USD $91B (~£78.6B) by 2026. Only time will tell how economic trends and shifts in spending will impact advertising in these spaces (and more generally), so there is no guarantee that macroeconomic challenges won’t shift ad spending on these channels. Another pressing challenge is that, with more brands entering the gaming sphere, audiences are becoming increasingly aware of the creative execution capabilities within gaming. As an audience with high expectations for a creative experience and a historical aversion to disruptive forms of advertising, gamers expect brands to communicate to them in ways that benefit them and do not impinge on gameplay. Marketers must concentrate on designing ways to reach out to players without intruding upon the game’s immersive experience while providing value, such as by rewarding players with additional lives or points for watching a video ad. What do you think the gaming and esports advertising landscape will look like in a year’s time? We expect that the market will continue to grow with innovations that transcend beyond pure gaming: with a rise of in-game advertising and the use of virtual currency exchange, we believe it’s highly likely that similar strategies will be introduced by players like Netflix, who are relatively new to the gaming sphere, as they explore ways to introduce ad-based models. We believe that the future of the esports and gaming industries will be powered by mobile. As we’ve mentioned above, consumers in Asia are expected to up their spending on mobile apps over the next four years, and the mobile gaming segment is set to make up 45% of the total global games market this year. This will be a positive for the space and further reduce barriers to entry for even more gamers and fans to get involved with and enjoy competitive gaming, spurring brands to craft and deliver new, exciting experiences to engage with their audiences. ATS Singapore 2022 will take place on 21st and 22nd September at Parkroyal Collection Marina Bay. Tickets and further information are available via the ATS Singapore 2022 event hub.

Pulaski County Tribe Unveils Grand Mural In Monterey – Yahoo News https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/pulaski-county-tribe-unveils-grand-mural-in-monterey-yahoo-news/ Sep. 8—A big, bold eagle has taken residence in downtown Monterey following an initiative by the Pulaski County Tribe. The grand mural, which is prominently displayed on the side of the Denton building at the 4-way stop downtown, signifies pride in the heritage and inspiration for the future of this rural Pulaski County community. The PCT and artist Zach Medler of West Lafayette met with Monterey community members to gather initial ideas that would have significance and then put some concepts out to public vote. The eagle was by far the people’s choice. A public dedication was held during the annual Monterey Days Festival on Saturday, September 3. “The eagle is a metaphor for resilience representing small communities,” Medler said at the dedication. “The eagles were here and then gone for a period of time, and now they’re back. The plants are native Indiana wetland plants including cardinal flower, goldenrod, evening primrose, and swamp verbena.” The location was chosen due to the park that is across from it and it is a place people traveling through can stop for a moment. Building owner Darlene Denton allowed the placement of the artwork. “Not only did we get art, but we made new friends too,” Denton said. Medler also unveiled two miniature murals he created for the public to enjoy. One was auctioned off to support future PCT placemaking efforts and the other will be on display on the west side of the Winamac Town Park as a continuation of artwork placed for the ongoing Art in the Park project. The PCT’s mission is to create artwork that embraces the pace and natural resources of Pulaski County. A grant from the Indiana Arts Commission and The Arts Federation helped make the project possible. Learn more about PCT at www.pulaskicountytribe.com. To contact the organization, email pulaskicountytribe@gmail.com.

Allegiant Airlines No Longer Flying Out Of Amarillo – Abc7amarillo.com https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/allegiant-airlines-no-longer-flying-out-of-amarillo-abc7amarillo-com/ Allegiant Airlines no longer flying out of Amarillo  abc7amarillo.com

Twilight Of Entrepreneurs In China As More Leave The Country – The New York Times https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/twilight-of-entrepreneurs-in-china-as-more-leave-the-country-the-new-york-times/ News analysis Two of China’s best-known entrepreneurs, Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, stepped down from their top jobs at the real estate development company they built. Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. The Chinese entrepreneurs Pan Shiyi, left, and Zhang Xin quit this week as chairman and chief executive, respectively, of their real estate empire, Soho China.Credit…Visual China Group via Getty Images Sept. 8, 2022Updated 7:58 p.m. ET BEIJING — Wealthy and powerful entrepreneurs in China were once idolized by the public, doted on by the government and courted by foreign investors. They helped build the Chinese economy into a powerhouse, and with it became the global face of Chinese business in a freer era, amassing billion-dollar fortunes, buying mansions overseas and holding court at elite international gatherings. Now, billionaire tycoons are the outsiders in an increasingly state-driven economy that puts a priority on politics and national security over growth. As the government cracks down on business and the economy weakens, they are keeping low profiles, stepping down from their companies or leaving the country entirely. In the latest exodus, two of China’s best-known entrepreneurs, Pan Shiyi and Zhang Xin, resigned this week as chairman and chief executive, respectively, of their real estate empire, Soho China. Both had already moved to the United States early in the pandemic and tried to manage their business with late-night calls back to China. It has been a rough year for their company. A deal to sell a controlling stake to the Blackstone Group in New York fell apart when regulators failed to approve it. Soho China’s stock has lost more than half its value in the past year. “Hugely successful entrepreneurs of the early 21st century in general have to ask questions about whether it is in their best interest to stay in charge of their businesses and stay in China,” said Michael Szonyi, former director of the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University. “Clearly, the writing is on the wall for these company founders.” The husband-and-wife couple had personified the Chinese economy’s broader rags-to-riches rise. Mr. Pan was born to a poor family in Gansu Province, while Ms. Zhang labored as a teenager in a garment factory in Hong Kong. Image The Wangjing Soho development in Beijing, designed by Zaha Hadid, a famous architect who was a friend of Ms. Zhang’s.Credit…Nicolas Asfouri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images They started their real estate business on Hainan Island in southernmost China, a place with a reputation even by China’s standards for having vertiginous booms and busts in apartment prices. They then quickly focused on China’s biggest cities, Beijing and Shanghai, where they built luxury apartment and retail complexes in some of the most expensive neighborhoods. Many real estate developers erected rectangular boxes with architectural palettes often limited to garish choices for the color of the glass and eccentric rooftops in poor mimicry of European manor houses. Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhang instead brought in star architects from the West like Zaha Hadid, a friend of Ms. Zhang’s, and created buildings with curving, yet minimalist, facades. Their resignations underscore the growing concern among private entrepreneurs that China is veering away from the freewheeling capitalism that Deng Xiaoping and former Premier Zhu Rongji pioneered. Mr. Deng turned to entrepreneurs in the late 1970s to rebuild the economy after the devastation of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, and Mr. Zhu then led China into the World Trade Organization and toward its role as the world’s largest exporter. Xi Jinping, the country’s leader since 2012, has moved China instead toward a much more authoritarian, state-led society in which national security concerns increasingly take precedence over economic growth. Business leaders and human rights activists alike who dare to question Mr. Xi publicly have been jailed as China has tightened the reins on the private sector. Very wealthy entrepreneurs used to be “able to operate as they wished, as long as they did not step over certain political boundaries, but those boundaries were pretty loose even through the first term of Xi Jinping,” which ended in 2017, said Victor Shih, a specialist in Chinese business and politics at the University of California San Diego. “All that changed. They are no longer such stars.” Jack Ma, a co-founder of Alibaba who went on to lead it to dominance in China’s e-commerce sector, has stepped down from the top jobs at the company. Colin Huang, founder of Pinduoduo, a rival to Alibaba, resigned as chairman early last year, less than a year after he stepped down as chief executive. A year ago, Zhang Yiming, founder of TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, said he would hand over the chief executive post to focus on long-term strategy. And as Shanghai went into a two-month lockdown in the spring as part of China’s “zero Covid” strategy, Zhou Hang, another prominent tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, left the city for Vancouver, British Columbia, where he issued a strong denunciation of China’s current policies. Image President Xi Jinping has moved China toward a state-led society in which national security concerns take precedence over economic growth.Credit…Pool photo by Selim Chtayti Soho China’s troubles have been accumulating. The company disclosed on July 7 that the police were investigating its chief financial officer for possible insider trading in Soho’s shares. Over the past year Soho has also been repeatedly accused of overcharging tenants for electricity and fined nearly $30 million. The government’s efforts to rein in a housing bubble, together with frequent lockdowns of Chinese cities as part of the country’s stringent approach to the pandemic, have caused the entire real estate market to stumble — and the fortunes of Soho China along with it. Soho China disclosed that average occupancy at its investment properties in Beijing and Shanghai had fallen to 80 percent as of June 30. Soho China and Ms. Zhang, who frequently spoke for the company, did not respond to calls and text messages requesting comment. Two company executives who have each been with Soho for about two decades, Xu Jin and Qian Ting, were promoted to become co-chief executives, according to a filing on Wednesday with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. A private equity executive, Huang Jingsheng, was named nonexecutive chairman of the company. Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhang will remain at Soho as executive directors, Soho China said in its filing, without specifying executive positions for them. Their resignations come as the Chinese Communist Party prepares to hold its national congress for the first time in five years, starting on Oct. 16. The congress is expected to give Mr. Xi a third five-year term in charge and possibly change the party’s charter to tighten further its grip on the country’s private sector. But China’s economy is in a tailspin, and tensions with the United States are high. That combination has made it harder for Mr. Xi to present himself to the congress as a successful leader. “Here he is, six weeks from a party congress, and things are tense, so this is exactly what he didn’t want,” said Barry Naughton, a professor at the University of California San Diego. The problems also make China a less attractive place for wealthy investors like Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhang to keep their money, he noted. “What a good time for them to step down.” Image Jack Ma, who led Alibaba to dominance in China’s e-commerce sector, has stepped down from the top jobs at the company.Credit…Charles Platiau/Reuters For the past quarter century, Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhang had profited from China’s rapid urbanization. When they started Soho China in 1995, the country had 352 million city dwellers — a number that had more than doubled by last year. For many Chinese, housing became their most important investment, accounting for two-thirds of household wealth. The couple catered to the most affluent of China’s elite with projects like Galaxy Soho and Wangjing Soho in Beijing and Sky Soho in Shanghai, all designed by Zaha Hadid Architects. These ambitious projects were emblematic of the central role in the Chinese economy that real estate had come to play, a sector that soon accounted for nearly a third of China’s entire economic activity. As Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhang’s wealth soared, so did their prominence as the faces of a new generation of sophisticated, cosmopolitan Chinese business leaders. On his Weibo social media account, Mr. Pan drew more than 18 million followers, and for years he used his influence to call for changes like cleaner air in Chinese cities. Ms. Zhang, who earned a master’s degree in economics at Cambridge and worked at Goldman Sachs early in her career, became a sought-after speaker at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The couple’s penthouse duplex in Beijing became one of China’s most fashionable salons for dinner parties that drew intellectuals, artists and government leaders from around the country and across the world. But China’s entrepreneurs have come under pressure as Mr. Xi has pursued his “common prosperity” campaign for businesses and tycoons to share more wealth with their countrymen to ease inequality. Mr. Xi has asserted the Communist Party’s control over the private sector, demanding political loyalty from companies and businesspeople. Ren Zhiqiang, another wealthy real estate developer and a friend of Mr. Pan’s, was sentenced to 18 years in prison after he criticized Mr. Xi. Some entrepreneurs have been silenced on social media. While Mr. Pa...

Hannaford Donates $300K To Bring Meals To Those In Need – The Daily Gazette – The Daily Gazette https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/hannaford-donates-300k-to-bring-meals-to-those-in-need-the-daily-gazette-the-daily-gazette/ Thursday, September 8, 2022 When credibility matters MENANDS — People living with chronic illnesses and facing the lack of food will be helped in part from a $300,000 donation from Hannaford Supermarkets. Hannaford on Thursday presented a check for $300,000 to The Food Pantries for the Capital District for their Healthy Meal Delivery program. The program offers fresh and nutritious food to individuals and families in need who also suffer with chronic health issues. “Here in the U.S. more than 50% of patients who are in hospitals are either food insecure or at risk of becoming food insecure,” said Natasha Pernicka, executive director for The Food Pantries for the Capital District. “It really impacts the health of the lives of so many people in this country.” The Food Pantries have seen this for years, Pernicka said. The organization runs a food access referral phone line, she said. “People call our line when they are released from the hospital home,” Pernicka said. “They’re unable to cook, due to whatever they are recovering from, they don’t have money and their refrigerator is empty. So we always knew there was something we needed to do to help people with that transition from hospital to home.” A home with one individual struggling with food insecurity almost always means the entire household is struggling with food insecurity, Pernicka said. Nutritious food can often help children prevent some chronic illnesses , she noted. The Food Pantries for the Capital District has developed a series of “Food as Medicine” programs over the past several years. The donation is one component of Hannaford’s more than $1.5 million commitment across New York state and New England to support the concept referred to as “Food as Medicine,” said Andrea Nickerson, Hannaford’s vice president of retail operations. The Food as Medicine movement focuses on the importance of a fresh and nutrient-rich diet as a critical component of a treatment plan for chronic health conditions, Nickerson said. The donation will allow more participants to be enrolled in The Food Pantries for the Capital District’s healthy meal delivery program, she said. “Hannaford has a long-standing commitment to nourishing our communities,” Nickerson said. “And we are so proud to be part of the continued fabric of the Capital Region community, particularly when it comes to improving access to nutritious foods and meals for those who need it most.” The Food Pantry launched its Food as Medicine program in summer 2020, said Dr. Alex Alam El Din-Meeks, program manager for the The Food Pantries for the Capital District Food. The prepared meals program offers medically tailored meals for those who qualify, Alam El Din-Meeks said. She explained participants receive three meals each day, seven-days a week for six months with an option to extend. “This type of program is critical in supporting a person’s individual health journey, but also so much more than that,” Alam El Din-Meeks said. “In talking with participants, conducting focus groups with participants, we are able to hear that it really does impact more than just their diet alone in the numbers.” Nutrition is an integral ingredient for the management of many medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and arthritis. said Dr. Renee Rodriguez-Goodemote of the Saratoga Community Health Center. More: All News More from The Daily Gazette: Categories: Fulton Montgomery Schoharie, News, News, Saratoga County, Schenectady County

NFL, PGA Tour And Sports World Pay Tribute To Queen Elizabeth II’s Death – NBC Chicago https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/nfl-pga-tour-and-sports-world-pay-tribute-to-queen-elizabeth-iis-death-nbc-chicago/ Sports world pays respect to Queen Elizabeth II’s death originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago Around the world, the sports community will be honoring Queen Elizabeth II, who died at the age of 96 on Thursday after 70 years on the throne. The royal family said that the Queen “died peacefully” at Balmoral after being placed under medical supervision earlier in the day. Many sporting events scheduled for the upcoming days are set to tribute the Queen, including the U.S. Open on Thursday night and the NFL, ahead of the regular season opener between the Buffalo Bills and Los Angeles Rams. As sports fans send their thoughts and prayers out to London, here are some of the sports tributes across the world: U.S. Open women’s semifinal Ahead of the U.S. Open women’s semifinals on Thursday night, New York will take a moment of silence to honor the Queen. Sports The tribute is set to begin at 7 p.m. ET prior to the first semifinal match between No. 5 Ons Jabeur and No. 17 Caroline Garcia. The second semifinal will feature No. 1 Iga Swiatek and No. 6 Aryna Sabalenka. NFL Season opener The NFL will hold a moment of silence ahead of the 2022 season kick-off when the Bills take on the Rams at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC. BMW PGA Championship suspension The BMW PGA Championship announced they would be suspending play until further notice in the wake of the Queen’s death. “Out of respect for Her Majesty and the Royal Family, play has been suspended at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth Club for the remainder of Thursday, and flags at Wentworth Club will be lowered to half-mast,” a statement from the Tour reads, according to GOLF.com. “Furthermore, no play will take place at the BMW PGA Championship on Friday, and the golf course and practice facilities will be closed.” UEFA Europa League A halftime tribute took place at a soccer match between FC Zurich and Arsenal. Players from each team lined up with their arms behind their backs while fans in the stands followed suit to honor the Queen. On the big screen, it said, “In memorial Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.” Horse racing  The British Horseracing Authority announced that all races would be suspended on Thursday and Friday to honor the Queen and her “extraordinary life and contribution to our sport and our nation.” “Her Majesty has been one of the greatest and most influential supporters in the history of horseracing,” a statement read. “Her passion for racing and the racehorse shone brightly throughout her life, not only through her close involvement in breeding and racing horses, but in her roles as a patron of The Jockey Club and Thoroughbred Breeders Association, and as the figurehead of Royal Ascot. “It is right, therefore, that all racing is suspended for today and tomorrow as we begin to grieve Her Majesty’s passing and remember her extraordinary life and contribution to our sport and our nation.” The Queen is one of the biggest faces of global horse racing and had been approaching 2,000 winners as a racehorse owner. Premier League West Ham and FCSB announced they would be taking a moment of silence ahead of kick-off, “allowing the teams, match officials and everyone in attendance to pay their respects to Her Majesty The Queen.”

Designer Fashion Trade Body Attracts Diane Von Furstenberg, Michael Kors To The SandBox Metaverse – Ledger Insights https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/designer-fashion-trade-body-attracts-diane-von-furstenberg-michael-kors-to-the-sandbox-metaverse-ledger-insights/ Today the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) announced a collaboration with The Sandbox metaverse. The trade body plans to use the metaverse for a fashion exhibition as a retrospective celebrating its 60th anniversary. The showcase will highlight designs from houses such as Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan, Oscar de la Renta, and more. Additionally, when the exhibition opens in December, a number of designers have agreed to create exclusive one-of-a-kind non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which will be sold to benefit the CFDA Foundation. The fundraising event, “Lighting the Path of American Fashion,” will feature designs from Diane von Furstenberg, Michael Kors, Wes Gordon for Carolina Herrera, Tommy Hilfiger, Coach, Willy Chavarria, Aurora James for Brother Vellies, and Vivienne Tam. Attracting those big names is no mean feat. Particularly because designers are known for their attention to detail, and their designs will need to be reinterpreted to a voxel environment – the low-resolution pixelated avatars supported by The Sandbox. “In celebrating 60 years since Eleanor Lambert founded the CFDA, we not only commemorate some of our biggest moments, but also want to use this milestone as an opportunity to look to the future,” said CFDA CEO Steven Kolb said. “The CFDA has always pioneered creative and innovative thinking, and with our first metaverse exhibition and NFTs, we are embracing this new era of digital transformation.” Quite a few crypto firms were involved in arranging the event. 5Crypto was the creative agency, Polygon is the blockchain used for the NFTs, BNV is a fashion NFT marketplace, and Arianee provides a web3 platform for luxury fashion. The luxury fashion sector is already exploiting NFTs and the metaverse in a big way. In a report last year, Morgan Stanley estimated that by 2030 luxury goods in the metaverse could boast revenues of €50 billion ($60bn). And that revenue comes with a far higher profit margin because the items are digital. Decentraland, a web3 metaverse competitor to TheSandbox, had a virtual fashion week this last March. Some of the participants included  Dolce & Gabbana, Estee Lauder, and Forever 21. Examples of luxury fashion brands that have already launched NFTs include Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Gucci, Bulgari and Jimmy Choo.

Apple IPhone 12 Pro Max Vs Apple IPhone 13 Pro Max – Gadgets Now https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/apple-iphone-12-pro-max-vs-apple-iphone-13-pro-max-gadgets-now/ If you are planning to switch to a new Apple phone and are a bit confused between Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max and Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max then here is a brief comparison between the two phones that may be helpful for you. Launch Date The Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max was launched in October 2020 while the latest Apple iPhone 13 Pro Max came into the market on September 2021 Display and Design iPhone 13 Pro Max comes with the most stunning upgrade which is its display. The screen size and resolution are almost the same as last year but it features a 6.7-inch OLED panel just like iPhone 12 Pro Max. It comes with a resolution of 1284 x 2778 pixels with the new 120Hz ProMotion for an awesome smooth scrolling experience. Its predecessor iPhone 12 Pro Max functions at 60Hz, while the 13 Pro Max screen has been refreshed 60 times. Also, 13 Pro Max has a more luminous display that can go up to 1,000 nits, while 12 Pro Max could go only up to 800 nits. Display measurements and quality There is no major change in terms of phone design, both look overall alike, yet the 13 Pro Max is a bit denser and a bit weightier. The 12 Pro Max was also quite heavy i.e. 228g, but the 13 Pro Max weighs 240g. Both are designed with stainless steel with Apple’s Ceramic Shield toughened glass on the front. Moreover, there is also clearly no distinction in their usefulness as both have the same IP68 dust and water protection rating. Camera Photography enthusiasts are surely gonna love the cameras both of these come with. iPhone 13 Pro Max sports camera that has been incredibly upgraded, its three cameras at back are quite bigger in look and come with bigger sensors. 13 Pro Max has a 12 MP + 12 MP + 12 MP camera same as the 12 Pro Max but the latest iPhone wide camera now captures up to 2.2X more light at night for both photos and videos, and its ultra-wide camera obtains up to 92% more light, and its main has a 1/1.65″ sensor while there is a 1/1.9″ sensor on the 12 Pro Max. Colours & Storage iPhone 13 Pro Max is available in 4 colours i.e. Graphite, Gold, Silver, and Sierra Blue with storage options starting from 128GB, 256GB, 512GB to 1TB. On the contrary iPhone 12 Pro Max also sports 4 colour options i.e. Pacific Blue, Gold, Graphite, and Silver. As far as storage is concerned 12 Pro Max has 3 choices which are 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB. Battery iPhone 13 Pro Max comes with 4,352mAh battery vs a 3,687mAh cell on the iPhone 12 Pro Max which is an expansion of almost 20%. So, if you have huge consumption than 13 Pro Max makes an ideal pick as it is designed to last longer than 12 Pro Max. FacebookTwitterLinkedin

Crypto’s Biggest Powerhouse Flexes On Its Competition – TechCrunch https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/cryptos-biggest-powerhouse-flexes-on-its-competition-techcrunch/ Welcome to Chain Reaction, where we unpack and explain the latest in crypto news, drama and trends, breaking things down block by block for the crypto curious. For our Thursday episode this week, we discussed the latest drama surrounding crypto mega exchange Binance, which is entering the stablecoin game and shaking up the ecosystem as it looks to muscle its way to supremacy. We also covered: Sorare gets into NBA fantasy sports thanks to a new partnership with the basketball league and the players association. Can the French startup beat out Dapper’s NBA Top Shot? MicroStrategy ex-CEO and Bitcoin bull billionaire Michael Saylor sued for tax fraud by DC Attorney General; the government estimates Saylor may owe as much as $100 million in income taxes to DC. Chain Reaction comes out every Tuesday and Thursday at 12:00 p.m. PT, so be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast and Spotify to keep up with the action.

Cole Lifts US By Puerto Rico In AmeriCup Quarters, 85-84 – The Washington Post https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/cole-lifts-us-by-puerto-rico-in-americup-quarters-85-84-the-washington-post/ RECIFE, Brazil — Norris Cole made sure that USA Basketball will play for a medal at AmeriCup. Cole — a two-time NBA champion with the Miami Heat — scored a game-high 20 points, capping it off by making the game-winning runner with 1.4 seconds remaining, and the U.S. rallied past Puerto Rico 85-84 in an AmeriCup quarterfinal game Thursday. It was the game’s seventh and final lead change, the last two of those coming in the final 6.1 seconds. “I just wanted to make a play for the team,” said Cole, who had the final eight points for the U.S. “The team trusted me, drew up a play for me to catch it and I was able to make a play. Moments like that, everybody dreams about, but I work hard at my individual game along with the team game, I was able to show my individual talent within the team concept, and it worked out.” Jeremy Pargo scored 15 points for the U.S., which got 11 from Zylan Cheatham and 10 from Stephen Zimmerman. “We’re fortunate to win,” U.S. coach Alex Jensen said. “They did a good job preparing for us. We got lucky. But hopefully it’s a good lesson for us moving forward.” Tremont Waters and Ethan Thompson each scored 16 for Puerto Rico. Waters had a layup with 6.1 seconds left to put his team up by one, and that set the stage for the last U.S. possession. Cole got the inbounds pass, drove with a left-hand dribble, took off from near the corner of the lane, changed hands and got the shot to fall to put the Americans back on top. He punched the air in celebration — but the Americans needed one more stop. They got it, in part because Puerto Rico didn’t get a great look. All Waters could do was take a desperation heave from the deep right corner, it missed, and the U.S. escaped. “We were 1 second from winning this game,” said Puerto Rico coach Nelson Colon, whose team led by 10 midway through the second quarter. “I can’t say anything more than ‘thank you’ to all my players, all my staff, all my managers, who helped us and supported us in this tournament.” The Americans will face Argentina in Saturday’s semifinals, with the medal-round games — either for gold or bronze — coming Sunday. Argentina is 4-0 in the tournament, rolling past Venezuela 76-53 in another quarterfinal Thursday. All four wins for Argentina have come by double figures, an average of 20.3 points. “It only gets harder after this,” Jensen said. In the first quarterfinal Thursday, Canada eliminated Mexico 82-77. Next up for Canada will be either Brazil or the Dominican Republic in the semifinals; those teams were scheduled to play the late game Thursday. FRIDAY’S SCHEDULE There are no games Friday. The semifinals are Saturday, with the third-place and championship games Sunday. ___ More AP sports: https://apnews.com/hub/sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Roanoke Tech Entrepreneur Bonz Hart Recalled As ‘true Inspiration’ – Roanoke Times https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/roanoke-tech-entrepreneur-bonz-hart-recalled-as-true-inspiration-roanoke-times/ A technology entrepreneur whose software and ingenuity set the tone for industrial advancement in the Roanoke and New River valleys and abroad has died. Bonz Hart, founder and longtime CEO of Meridium Inc., died Tuesday after battling stage 4 pancreatic cancer for two months. Hart The Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council (RBTC), of which Hart was the first technology entrepreneur president, shared the news in a news release. “Hart will always hold a special place in the hearts of many people in our region,” the statement read. Russ Ellis, president of gNext Labs and an RBTC Hall of Fame member, said Hart was “an inspirational leader in our regional technology ecosystem, a patient mentor to many and a loyal friend to all who knew him.” “His premature passing leaves a huge void in our lives and is a painful loss to all who knew him,” Ellis said in an email Thursday. Roanoke Regional Chamber President and CEO Joyce Waugh said the impact Hart had on the valley’s business community was a “true inspiration.” “In many respects, he was a pioneer, not only in his industry, but in just starting a new business, and working all over the world,” Waugh said in an interview Thursday.  Hart began his technology career as a serial entrepreneur and consultant, working for software companies in the U.S. and Canada,” the RBTC said. “His reputation and expertise prompted DuPont to recruit him for their information technology products group in the late 1980s.” In an office over his Bedford County garage in 1993, Hart founded Meridium. From there, the firm expanded to downtown Roanoke’s former Wachovia Tower, then in 2011 to a rehabilitated multistory and highly visible building beside Interstate 581’s Elm Avenue exit to downtown Roanoke. The company builds software for the oil and gas industry “with the vision of helping the world’s asset-intensive industries protect people, our planet, and profits through effective asset performance management software and services,” RBTC said. “It’s just really phenomenal to even envision making a product that could have these kinds of controls and help businesses all over the world,” Waugh said. “I just marvel at people that have those kinds of minds and then do something about it.” Meridium grew by reinvesting its revenue, never taking in outside capital, until 24% of its ownership was sold to GE Digital, a division of General Electric, in 2014. “Entrepreneurs have to take a lot of risks,” Waugh said, “and [Hart] did what he needed to do and took a lot of risks, not knowing whether his company would go as he expected or not.” “The company grew to 500 full-time employees and contractors, with headquarters in Roanoke and offices in Houston, London, Madrid, Dubai, Bangalore (India), Singapore, and Australia,” the RBTC said. The company helped “over 1,200 global sites in over 80 countries protect their production assets by predicting and preventing their physical assets from failing.” In 2016, GE Digital purchased the rest of Meridium “for an enterprise value of $500 million,” RBTC said. Then in January 2017, four months after the company’s purchase, Hart retired at the age of 60. As a keynote speaker at an RBTC TechNite awards banquet the following April, Hart said his decision to step down as CEO wasn’t planned, but it had to happen do that Meridium could grow. “If I really cared about the team, I needed to replace myself,” Hart said. “Not what I wanted to do. … But if you’re committed to the purpose, committed to the opportunity, those decisions get a lot easier — even if they become personal.” Hart announced his cancer diagnosis in a July post on his CaringBridge web page. In May, he noticed “something didn’t feel right” in his abdomen. On July 9, doctors recommended he go to the emergency room. “The doctor pulls up a stool and says, ‘We know what the source of your pain is. You have pancreatic cancer and it has spread to your liver, making it a stage 4+ and not a treatable cancer. We need to focus on pain management,’” Hart relayed. “I am so thankful this didn’t happen in my forties-fifties,” Hart’s post continued. He was writing from a ranch on Montana, where he was supported by doctors and members of his family. “We know God’s plan is perfect, but the realization of separation from all whom I love is/will be hard.” The most recent post on Hart’s CaringBridge web page is from one of Hart’s daughters, Kaley Hegeman. It reports Hart’s death on Sept. 6. “After constant care by his sons and snuggles and hand-holding by his daughters, he was left alone with his beautiful wife and found the peace to pass,” Hegeman wrote. “We know he is in heaven and found all the glory that is promised. Christ carried him through this season of affliction to now be in His arms.” “Someone who could lose it all took the chance, really did extremely well, paid people well, and gave a lot of people a chance and made our community a far better place,” Waugh said. “I think that inspiration goes a long way to encouraging others.” Subscribe to our Daily Headlines newsletter.

Save $600 On Skytech’s Chronos Ryzen 7 And RTX 3080 Gaming Desktop At $1,900 – 9to5Toys https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/save-600-on-skytechs-chronos-ryzen-7-and-rtx-3080-gaming-desktop-at-1900-9to5toys/ Amazon is now offering the Skytech Chronos Ryzen 7/16GB/1TB/RTX 3080 Gaming Desktop for $1,899.99 shipped. Normally going for $2,500, this 24% discount marks the first price drop we’ve seen for this desktop. While prices for desktop hardware have been dropping across the board as availability gets better, you may not want to build out your own PC. Instead, you can grab the Skytech desktop that comes equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X CPU and an NVIDIA RTX 3080 GPU for a powerful gaming experience. The 16GB of system memory is paired with 1TB of NVMe M.2 SSD storage to store all your games with quick access for those large files as well. If you’re in the market for a new gaming desktop, this is a good option that is a good value. Keep reading for more. If you’re looking for a mobile gaming solution, check out the Acer Predator Helios 300 i7/16GB/512GB/RTX 3060 for $1,134.50. You will get Wi-Fi 6 support with lightning-fast wireless internet on supported networks alongside the 11th Gen Intel Core i7-11800H processor and RTX 3060 graphics. This hardware is perfectly capable of powering the 15.6-inch 1080p 144Hz display in pretty much any game, with some stronger AAA games needing some settings turned down. One unique feature this laptop comes with that you won’t see in too many other places is the Alexa Show Mode which will let this device operate as if it were a Show device. Be sure to stop by our PC gaming hub for the latest deals on hardware and peripherals. Another option for a mobile gaming solution is the MSI Creator M16 i7/16GB/512GB/RTX 3050 Ti Gaming Laptop down at its all-time low of $1,250. Delivering a 16-inch QHD+ 60Hz display, this screen clocks in with a 16:10 aspect ratio to give you a little more information in view. The screen also features a 100% DCI-P3 gamut coverage which makes it ideal for content creators. Skytech Chronos Ryzen 7/16GB/1TB/RTX 3080 Desktop features: Chronos delivers the latest performance gains for next gen gaming in stunning high quality, lightning fast speed and ultimate power. Designed to exceed the needs of today’s gamers by delivering ultra quality graphics, high frame rates and making game streaming and video rendering fast and buttery smooth. Comes with a mouse and keyboard along with Windows pre-installed. The included quick start guide helps you plug in, power up and play straight out of the box. Just bring your own display. Subscribe to the 9to5Toys YouTube Channel for all of the latest videos, reviews, and more!

State Rep. Jared Patterson Opening New Office In Sanger – Denton Record Chronicle https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/state-rep-jared-patterson-opening-new-office-in-sanger-denton-record-chronicle/ Best of the Blotter Would you like to receive our Weekly Blotter email newsletter? Sign up today! Breaking News e-Edition Notifier Receive a daily notification that the DR-C e-Edition is available. Sign up now. High School Season Pass Sign up to receive the Denton Record-Chronicle High School Sports Newsletter. Mean Green Spotlight Want to receive the NEW Mean Green Spotlight weekly newsletter. Sign Up Today!  Promotions and Offers Would you like to receive information from our advertisers or DR-C offers? Sign up now. Wake Up with the DR-C Would you like to receive our Wake Up with the DR-C newsletters? Sign up now. Your Money, Your Home Sign up for Business News delivered twice monthly to your inbox.

Jason And Brett Oppenheim Return To Mykonos With Girlfriends They Both First Met On The Greek Island – PEOPLE https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/jason-and-brett-oppenheim-return-to-mykonos-with-girlfriends-they-both-first-met-on-the-greek-island-people/ Jason and Brett Oppenheim are embarking on another Greek vacation — this time, with their new leading ladies. The Selling Sunset stars both shared a glimpse into the start of their “epic week” in Mykonos on Instagram. The twins, 45, are joined by Brett’s new girlfriend, tattoo artist Samantha Abdul, and Jason’s new girlfriend, model Marie-Lou Nurk, both of whom they met on their previous vacation to the same island earlier this summer. Nurk, 25, posted on Instagram Stories Wednesday, sharing a selfie alongside Jason in a helicopter as well as a scenic shot showing an infinity pool with the Aegean Sea in the background along with the words “Hi Mykonos.” She also shared a playful clip of Abdul and Brett riding in the back of a golf cart as the two smiled and laughed. Brett posted a video of the group disembarking a helicopter along with the message “Arriving at the villa in Mykonos in style, about to have an epic week!” Abdul shared an assortment of short clips to her story showing off the views. On Thursday, she also shared a message in her Story clarifying a misunderstanding in which some of her followers thought that she had chartered a helicopter just to have a makeup bag she left behind flown to the villa. In reality, she said, the item was being transported to her on a regularly scheduled helicopter that would be arriving from Athens with other guests later that day. Both Oppenheim brothers’ romances began back in July on the tourist-friendly island. Jason and Nurk’s relationship when public earlier than the couple expected when they were spotted kissing in a parking lot in Greece in a video obtained by PEOPLE and originally published by SWNS. The pair opened up to PEOPLE about their new romance, including how they met. Nurk caught the eye of the real estate broker while they were both partying at Scorpio’s on Mykonos. She agreed to a date, he recalls, with one catch. “I asked her to dinner the next day,” Jason said. “She said yes, but then an hour before dinner, she’s like, ‘Is it cool if my friends come?’ I’m like, “Ah.” “I hate first dates,” Nurk explained. “When you’re stuck in the conversation and you just don’t know if you like the person or not, then you have to do a small talk. I hate it.” Since going official, the couple have been jetsetting around the world on various vacations and enjoying some time in L.A., where Jason is based, filming Selling Sunset and attending red carpet premieres together. A source told PEOPLE in August, that Brett also met Abdul while vacationing in Mykonos in July and that the two “clicked right away.” Abdul’s budding relationship with Brett comes months after the reality star had announced his split from model Tina Louise in an Instagram story in December in response to a follower’s question. The former couple had been dating publicly since April 2021. Jason split from his Selling Sunset co-star Chrishell Stause in December 2021 five months after going public.

Rough Road For Residences – Long Island Business News https://dentoncountynewsonline.com/rough-road-for-residences-long-island-business-news/ It’s no surprise that Long Island’s pricey and competitive housing market has made it difficult for people to find an affordable place to live. But for agencies dedicated to sheltering and caring for the developmentally and physically disabled, the situation has become especially dire. Over the last two years, home prices and the cost of land to develop housing here have skyrocketed. Propelled by unprecedented demand during the COVID-19 pandemic and an historically low supply of available homes for sale, the median prices of homes sold in Nassau County shot up more than 36 percent since March 2020, and the median price of homes sold in Suffolk is up nearly 42 percent in that same period. The high prices and keen competition for houses, especially ranch-style homes that are better suited for disabled people and seniors, have hamstrung Long Island agencies in their efforts to add beds for their clients in need. The living room at a RISE Life Services residence in Riverhead. Courtesy of RISE Life Services “A home that we normally would have purchased five years ago would have been around $250,000 to $300,000, now they go for $600,000, double the price,” said Charles Evdos, executive director of Riverhead-based RISE Life Services. “The cost of renovating is also an issue. Instead of costing $200 a square foot, it’s now $300 a square foot. It gets very expensive.” RISE currently operates 32 residential sites throughout Suffolk County, about half of them in Riverhead. The nonprofit hasn’t added any new homes in six years, putting expansion plans on hold. However, the agency has been renovating some of its existing housing stock to accommodate its aging residents, more than half of whom are seniors. “Right now we’re renovating three homes, taking the garages and converting them to bedrooms, because what’s happened over the years, the state did not plan for the population aging out and did a poor job of it,” Evdos told LIBN. “We’ve been around since 1984 and those individuals have gotten to be 80 or 90 years old and they require ADA-compliant-type houses on one floor. And a lot of the homes that the agency has purchased over the years are two-story homes, not too many are single-family ranches that are ADA compatible. And the older homes didn’t have wider hallways where a wheelchair can go through, so that’s been our biggest dilemma, trying to convert.” Another agency that provides housing, Garden City-based Life’s WORC, is also challenged by current market conditions. The organization has 45 homes and has been approved for five more. MATTHEW ZEBATTO: ‘You wouldn’t buy a home if you didn’t think you can staff it, because then you’re stuck with an empty home.’ Photo by Judy Walker “But even though we’re approved, it’s very difficult to purchase them because we’re at a competitive disadvantage for purchasing,” says Matthew Zebatto, CEO of Life’s WORC, which also has a preference for ranch-style houses. “The challenge on the ranch homes is those are usually more available out east and out east it’s harder for us because the workforce is very difficult to get out east. We’re kind of in a hiring crisis right now, so the further east we get, the more difficult it is.” And while real estate prices have risen quickly, Zebatto said that’s only one of the obstacles his agency faces in expanding its housing capacity. “A lot of agencies right now have stopped looking for the sole reason they’re not able to get the staff to work in the homes. That’s the big challenge, the hiring,” Zebatto said. “You wouldn’t buy a home if you didn’t think you can staff it, because then you’re stuck with an empty home. That’s why a lot of people have put their search on pause until the market comes down and until they have new lead flow of work candidates and right now that’s the biggest crisis.” Most of the funding that pays for homes and salaries comes from state agencies like the Office of People with Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD). But that funding limits salaries to between $16 and $18 an hour, creating a competitive disadvantage when these organizations try to recruit staff. “Not everybody can do this job,” Evdos says. “It requires a special person that cares and has a lot of patience. And unfortunately, a lot of our staff work two or three jobs just to make ends meet.” For Medford-based Concern Housing, which develops its own communities, the biggest hurdle to expanding its housing portfolio has been the struggle to get timely municipal approvals for its projects. RALPH FASANO: ‘Getting the approvals so that we can build multifamily housing is the biggest challenge on Long Island.’ Photo by Judy Walker “Essentially we have to acquire land and get the approvals that we need, which is really the major obstacle,” said Ralph Fasano, Concern’s executive director. “Getting the approvals so that we can build multifamily housing is the biggest challenge on Long Island.” Concern has been working on a project to bring 60 affordable apartments to a 5-acre site in Southampton. Fasano said he hopes to secure approvals for the project by the end of the year, though it has been in the works for five years. “We’re still in contract on the site in Southampton, but we’ve extended that contract and we’ve paid a lot of option money to keep the owner interested in selling it to us, so we’ve been paying tens of thousands of dollars to keep extending the contract to get the approvals,” he said. Fasano says the trend is to mix disability populations with generic affordable housing that communities need so it’s a blend, which is what the Southampton project will be. Last year, Concern, which has about 1,500 rental units spread across 270 sites that it owns or rents, opened Liberty Station, a 77-unit affordable apartment complex on 11 acres in Port Jefferson Station. The $28 million project brought 25 apartments reserved for veterans, 20 apartments with a preference for veterans and 32 apartments for people making less than 50 percent of the area median income, with monthly rents for disabled veterans as low as $550. “It’s based on what people can afford,” Fasano said. “We see a lot of the Vietnam veterans who are aging now and in their 70s with a lot of medical conditions related to their service.” Old Bethpage-based Family Residences and Essential Enterprises (FREE) has more than 150 homes and rental apartments, but the nonprofit isn’t currently looking to expand its housing capacity. CHRISTOPHER LONG: ‘We’re having a very hard time because the rental market has ballooned.’ Courtesy of FREE “FREE has found all of its locations that we were approved and licensed for,” said Christopher Long, president of the organization. “We were very aggressive in opening homes over the last couple of years, so all of our approved projects have opened except one, where we’ve identified a site that’s about to go under construction.” That project is a ranch home in the Shirley area that will accommodate four people that have lived in crisis environments like temporary transitional housing and need permanent placement. Long says that soaring Long Island rents have been troublesome when it comes to finding clients a place to live. “When individuals are coming in for supportive, unlicensed housing, people who are interested in apartment living, we’re having a very hard time because the rental market has ballooned,” Long said. “There are escalations built into the lease arrangements, and our men and women are on fixed incomes, so it because increasingly problematic then the rental costs are so high. We’re having more of a difficulty there than we are in certified, traditional group-home environments.” And like all the state-funded agencies that provide housing and services, FREE is trying to deal with everything getting more expensive. “Every year the state issues new rates, so right now because of what we’re experiencing with inflationary costs of food and daily expenses, organizations are very concerned about those rising costs, because we could not project the inflation costs in our budget,” Long said. “I don’t think we’ve really realized yet the full impact of those increased costs, but we expect them to continue to become problematic for us. Organizations do need to continue to advocate for elevations in the rates to accommodate these changes.” While RISE usually expands its residence capacity by buying and renovating individual homes, Evdos says the agency is eyeing a 36-acre property in Riverhead for a future multifamily development that could house as many as 200 people. “I would love to create a 55-and-over community for the disabled. Just like other 55-and-over communities with a swimming pool and other amenities,” Evdos said. “What I’d love to do is put a primary care facility in there, an urgent care where they can get their medical, and maybe a supermarket, too. That would be a dream come true.” DWINZELBERG@LIBN.COM

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