HOUSTON – When it comes to investing, gone are the days of needing a broker to help make trades and transactions.
Instead, as with most things today, there are apps out there that help make trading not only convenient, but also more accessible for a first-time investor.
She began her investment journey at the age of 17 after her father died and left her a death benefit. She invested that money and then began a career in the financial industry.
She also got in on some big-time stocks from the ground up.
“I think my biggest hit has been Amazon. I started that one off really young. I’ve also done well with Tesla. Tesla was a newcomer, and then triple-digit returns off the tip of a Tesla.”
Cummings said investing has come a long way from when she first began, and now allows the everyday consumer to benefit from the stock market.
“These apps were not around five, 10 years ago, so this is a great time for you to get an introduction and dip your toe in the water when it comes to investing in the stock market.”
The Fort Osage baseball team got some help to go along with their eight hits Thursday.
The Indians also received nine walks and four hit batters on the way to a 13-1 rout of host Belton in a Suburban Middle Six matchup.
Brayden Nelson went 2-for-3 with three RBIs and two runs to lead the offense.
Fort held a 5-0 lead after five innings but erupted for eight runs in the sixth to end it early on the mercy rule.
Nathan Oakes shut down the Pirates, allowing four hits, one walk and one run while striking out five in a six-inning complete game.
Zack Tillman had a hit, two walks, two RBIs, a run and a stolen base, Chase Stumfall had a hit, two RBIs and two runs and Blake Williams and Greg Menne each had a hit and an RBI for the Indians (8-12, 5-2 Middle Six).
OAK GROVE 13, HARRISONVILLE 1: Oak Grove cruised to a Missouri River Valley Conference West win after exploding for 11 runs in the first inning Thursday.
Carson Smith went 2-for-3 with two RBIs and a stolen base and Haiden Armstrong was 4-for-4 with a triple, an RBI, three runs and two stolen bases to lead the Panthers (7-9-1, 2-4 MRVC West).
Shayton Wright went 4 1/3 innings, allowing three hits, one run and no walks while striking out five. Nick Reeves got the final two outs.
Wright added a hit, two walks, an RBI, two runs and two stolen bases, Cole Chaney and Evan Howard each had a double and two RBIs and Dalton Chaney chipped in two hits, an RBI and a stolen base.
May 01, 2021 at 01:12AM
https://www.examiner.net/story/sports/high-school/baseball/2021/04/30/prep-baseball-roundup-fort-osage-capitalizes-free-passes-easy-win/4891874001/
Prep baseball roundup: Fort Osage capitalizes on free passes for easy win - Blue Springs Examiner
The Pittsburgh Steelers knew right away who they wanted to take when their turn to pick came up in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft on Thursday night.
With the draft operating remotely, it was a virtual signal to the NFL office that the team was selecting Alabama running back Najee Harris with the No. 24. Nobody had to run to the podium to begin the process that ended with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell reading Harris’ name in front of several thousand lustily booing Browns fans in Cleveland.
The Steelers identified Harris early on in the scouting process as a strong potential fit with the team’s desire to improve its running game and his potential as a true three-down workhorse in the NFL.
General manager Kevin Colbert and his scouting staff picked out Harris early on, with the Steelers scouting six of Alabama’s game in person last fall despite coronavirus restrictions on travel and attendance, including one trip by Colbert himself.
Colbert and some Steelers scouts got to chat with Harris during the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama in January and the Steelers sent Colbert, head coach Mike Tomlin and offensive coordinator to Matt Canada to Alabama’s Pro Day, but Harris did not work out while rehabbing an injury. When he did perform later in the spring, running backs coach Eddie Faulkner went to Tuscaloosa to get a look at him.
Given the restrictions on scouting, the Steelers identifying Harris as a potential fit early on allowed the team to feel comfortable with its level of due diligence.
“We had several opportunities to visit with him,” Tomlin said. “Kevin and the scouting department had an opportunity to visit with him in Mobile. I had an opportunity to participate in that remotely. And then we had another Zoom opportunity later in the process, and we were really comfortable with getting an opportunity to get to know him under those circumstances.”
So when the New York Jets traded up from No. 23 to take guard Alijah Vera-Tucker and the Miami Dolphins went with a pass rusher instead of taking Harris at No. 18, the Steelers had a pretty good idea they were getting their man.
“When we went through our scenarios, it was an easy decision by us to say, if Najee Harris is available, we will pick him,” Colbert said. “He’s an exciting player, and like we said, he’s a three-dimensional running back coming from a professional offensive system. He’s made NFL runs his whole career, and it was easy to identify him quite honestly. I got to see him live myself this year. We had six live looks at him during the course of the season between myself and the scouts, and every time we talked about him, we were excited that again, this caliber of player would be available to us.” Harris was asked about the Steelers in multiple pre-draft interviews, but he said that he never really expected the team to take him with the 24th overall pick, despite their elevated level of interest.
“Of course you hear a lot of mixed rumors of everything that was going on with — especially in the draft —with the Steelers picking you,” he said. “I’m sure there were other teams, but me personally, like even all the stuff that you see online, I can’t really say I expected that, especially being a running back. You expect a bunch of stuff, but for it to actually happen, I didn’t really think that was going to happen.”
But when Tomlin picked up the phone to let Harris know he’d be the next member of the Pittsburgh Steelers, he didn’t need to make an introduction.
Rural people urgently need improved internet service, ag lawmakers agree, but Congress must confront high costs and a variety of technologies as it attempts to ease the problem.
Considered key to precision agriculture, health care, education, commerce and quality of life in rural areas, fast internet remains unavailable to 24 million Americans, by one estimate.
Reducing this number has been high on rural groups’ minds for years, but the issue gained political importance when the pandemic drove millions of people to work and attend school at home.
“It’s resulted in lost opportunities to expand businesses, to learn new skills or even participate in daily activities,” U.S. Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Pa., said in an April 20 hearing of the House Agriculture Committee.
One of the most fundamental questions about broadband is who should be responsible for rolling it out to the countryside.
Large territories with few customers don’t make rural places attractive to big internet service providers, so local telecom companies, rural electric cooperatives, nonprofits and local governments are trying to fill the gap.
The technologies to provide the service are as diverse as the types of businesses involved — and they can dramatically affect the price of deployment.
Extending broadband to all unserved Americans could cost anywhere from $60 billion to $150 billion, speakers in the Ag Committee hearing said.
Fiber-optic cable is the gold standard for speed and reliability, but it’s expensive to lay.
In rough or mountainous terrain, wireless options may make more sense. That could include satellite internet, which is often costly, as well as fixed wireless towers or even tethered blimps.
These technologies have their own drawbacks, such as the risk of equipment on towers being fried by lightning strikes, said Jennifer Prather, general manager of Totelcom Communications in central Texas.
Whichever technology is used, Prather wants to use hardware that won’t quickly become obsolete when the company extends service to a new area.
“If it’s taken this long to get broadband, we want to put something in the ground that will last many, many decades because I don’t know when we would get back to them to upgrade that,” she said.
Path to Prosperity
The challenges aren’t limited to wide-open Texas, where the most rural parts of Prather’s service area have just 2.75 broadband customers per square mile.
Even densely populated Northeastern states have places where high-speed internet service is poor or nonexistent.
One is Litchfield County, in the rural northwestern corner of Connecticut. The county has seen an influx of new residents during the pandemic, the reversal of an economy-draining trend of young families leaving for greener pastures.
“It’s hard to imagine how these families can stay if telework is not an option for them,” said Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn.
Rep. Chris Jacobs, R-N.Y., took the sentiment further, looking forward to a renaissance for rural and small-town America.
“I think people are appreciating again the value in space, the value in small community, the value of quality of life, and I think that we have a lot of that to offer,” Jacobs said.
There’s reason to doubt whether universal broadband can fulfill its advocates’ biggest dreams.
A New York Times analysis of change-of-address requests to the U.S. Postal Service found that even during the pandemic, people kept flocking to areas that were already booming, while hard-luck regions didn’t see much growth.
Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Conn., says poor internet service in rural northwestern Connecticut could prompt residents who arrived during the pandemic to give up on the area.
Screen capture by Philip Gruber
And considering rural counties are some of the least educated places in the country, broadband would do little to help current rural residents tap into well-paying knowledge-economy jobs, Kevin D. Williamson argues in the conservative magazine National Review.
“From that point of view, connecting more rural areas to faster internet service is not an investment in the labor market — it is an indirect subsidy for Netflix and Amazon,” he scoffs.
But Williamson’s view focuses mainly on the present. Lawmakers are worried that a lack of fast internet could condemn rural areas to economic backwater status for years to come.
“It creates a two-tiered system, like we’ve been hearing about, where part of our country has access to everything — information, technology, jobs — and the rest is kind of left behind,” said Rep. Kim Schrier, D-Wash.
A Bipartisan Issue
On top of the urban-rural divide, there are haves and have-nots within the context of rural internet.
The Federal Communications Commission’s minimum standard for broadband is 25 megabits per second download and 3 megabits per second upload.
Acting Agency Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel has said those rates are too slow for activities such as videoconferencing and streaming movies. She and other experts have pushed for a minimum speed of 100 megabits per second.
Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., said he’s worried such a change would steer funding toward areas with meager but existing internet rather than places that don’t have access at all.
The Ag Committee members have some other points of disagreement. Many see a key role for government in expanding broadband, though Rep. Scott DesJarlais, R-Tenn., tweeted after the hearing that “the private sector can do a better job than government providing this access.”
Still, the Ag Committee members repeatedly cast broadband as a bipartisan issue.
After Biden rolled out his infrastructure proposal in March, it wasn’t clear if that across-the-aisle spirit would prevail in Congress as a whole.
Republicans swiftly said many pieces of Biden’s bill didn’t qualify as infrastructure, and they had included limits on government-run broadband networks in a February bill package.
But when Senate Republicans introduced their $568 billion infrastructure plan on April 22, they slated $65 billion for broadband — more than any other category besides bridges and roads.
West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said the proposal is a step in the negotiations.
April 30, 2021 at 09:45PM
https://www.lancasterfarming.com/news/main_edition/house-finds-no-easy-answers-on-broadband/article_6f86f0a2-dda4-5600-9c6c-6ed4e196eee4.html
House Finds No Easy Answers on Broadband | Main Edition | lancasterfarming.com - Lancaster Farming
The economic re-opening is coming alongside a surge in prices, but the U.S. central bank is making it clear that they will not flinch in the face of noisy inflation data.
The Bureau of Economic Analysts reported Wednesday that when stripping out more volatile pricing components like food and energy, prices rose by 1.8% year-over-year.
That change in core personal consumption expenditures (PCE), the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation, is the fastest growth recorded since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The reading could point to even higher inflation figures in coming months. After a third round of stimulus checks and other fiscal support, personal income surged by 21.1% in March. The data suggests that Americans will have more money in their pockets to spend more through the year, with the personal savings rate rising to 27.6%.
Analysts are now casting their predictions for just how high inflation could go, with Morgan Stanley’s economics team forecasting core PCE readings peaking at 2.6% in April and May.
ING economists said that as the re-opening gains momentum, households will choose to spend more money, particularly in service-based sectors like travel and leisure.
“With households having saved trillions of dollars, there is a lot of cash ammunition to fund it,” ING chief international economist James Knightley wrote Friday.
Fed not flinching
The Fed’s inflation target is 2%, meaning that core PCE growth of 1.8% is still below its target.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell warned Wednesday that incoming inflation data would show higher numbers due to “transitory” factors. For example, year-over-year measures of inflation are now being compared against the spring 2020 months that showed the deepest contractions in economic activity.
Powell estimated that the so-called “base effects” will contribute about 0.7 percentage points to core inflation in April and May. The Fed also pointed to “temporary” supply chain bottlenecks.
“They carry no implication for the rate of inflation in later periods,” Powell told reporters Wednesday.
The Fed’s official stance is that it will tolerate inflation rising “moderately” above its 2% target, but Powell reassured markets that if prices look like they may run away, policymakers “will use our tools to guide inflation and expectations back down to 2%.”
Still, market watchers are unsure about the component of inflation that may not be temporary: the rebound in spending and demand in the face of unprecedented stimulus from the government and the Fed.
Savita Subramanian, Bank of America’s head of U.S. equity and quantitative strategy, said that the “million dollar question” is parsing out the temporary price pressures from the drivers that are not.
“It’s more about the Fed and how the Fed is able to absorb potentially higher inflation that might not be transitory,” Subramanian told Yahoo Finance Friday.
Brian Cheung is a reporter covering the Fed, economics, and banking for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter@bcheungz.
Easy Guard Ground Station in the hurricane simulation being exposed to 4hours of manufactured rain with steady 40 MPH winds.
BROOKLYN, N.Y., -Easy Aerial has announced that its Easy Guard ground station has received its certification of Military Standard Specification MIL-STD 810G. Easy Guard is a smart, independent aircraft hangar for takeoff, landing and charging. It features an automated roof opening and closing system and is made from military-grade materials, rendering it mobile, rugged and weather resilient. Easy Guard’s size and weight allow it to be rapidly mobilized and deployed from stationary and mobile launch sites, such as a standard pickup truck or other vehicle configuration, traveling up to 25 miles per hour. The ground station comes equipped with numerous sensors and four external cameras for situational awareness of the deployment site.
Established by the United States Air Force after World War II, MIL-STD-810 certification provides a formal methodology for testing equipment under simulated environmental conditions to ensure that all equipment used by the military can fully operate in a variety of harsh conditions including extreme temperatures, pressures, shocks, and radiation. MIL-STD-810 Revision G is the latest and most rigorous evolution of the standard to date.
To achieve its certification, an Easy Guard was subjected to a range of independent field tests running from October 2020 through January 2021. Conducted by E-Labs Inc., a full-service climate testing laboratory specializing in aerospace and military equipment, the simulations tested the Easy Guard’s ability to withstand radiation (1,100 W/m2), long-term sun exposure (temperatures of over 130F), humidity (50% RH), and hurricane and sandstorm force winds (40 MPH). Multiple test cycles were conducted in both operating and storage/ transportation, non-operating conditions. Not only did Easy Guard pass all these tests, it did so with zero abnormal findings.
If the digits on your Echo Dot with Clock are too bright or dim, you can adjust the setting in the Alexa app.
Amazon
It's the little things that drive you crazy, isn't it? Like forgetting to lower the volume on your Alexa speaker before bed, or an Echo Dot with Clock so bright you could land an airplane by it. Amazon smart speakers and displays are pretty great, but these little grievances can really gnaw at you.
I hear you -- I could stock a PetSmart with all the technological pet peeves I've collected over the years, and Alexa gets no free passes. But I also doggedly pursue solutions, which is what I bring you today.
In no particular order, here are five of the most annoying problems I've had with my Amazon Echo devices and what I've done to solve them.
You can get Alexa to respond with a whisper if you whisper when you give the voice command.
Amazon
Alexa, would you please pipe down?
No one wants Alexa shouting at them in the middle of the night. But if you were rocking to some pre-bedtime bangers and forgot to lower the volume when the lights went out, "startled" is an understatement for what you'll be when you roll over and ask, "Alexa, what time is it?"
There are actually a few ways to handle this:
Lower the volume as part of your bedtime routine: If you have a routine set to trigger every night when you say, "Alexa, goodnight," you can add a command to set the volume to something comfortable (I like volume level 3 for nighttime).
Create a routine to lower the volume at the same time every night: say, 10 p.m., if that's when you typically drift off to sleep.
Use whisper mode: It's simple. Just whisper to Alexa, and your speaker will whisper back.
If you could land an aircraft by the light of your Echo Dot with Clock, try adjusting the brightness setting in the Alexa app.
Dale Smith/CNET
Your Echo Dot with Clock can be viewed from space
The Echo Dot with Clock has an ambient light sensor that adjusts the clock's brightness based on how much light is in the room, but it doesn't always cinch it. Maybe you have a nearby nightlight throwing it off, or maybe you're sensitive to light when trying to sleep (i.e., you keep a roll of electrical tape handy for bedroom devices).
Here's how to tweak the Echo Dot with Clock's brightness:
1. Open the Alexa app, tap Devices then tap Echo & Alexa and LED Display.
2. Either turn off Adaptive Brightness or don't.
3. Adjust the slider (if you leave Adaptive Brightness on, the clock will still automatically change relative to the new position).
Kanye West's seminal album 808s & Heartbreak is available on Apple Music, despite Alexa's protestations to the contrary.
Screenshot by Dale Smith/CNET
Alexa botches your musical request
I listen to Kanye West's 2008 masterpiece 808s and Heartbreak -- in its entirety -- several times a year, but Alexa reliably bungles the request every single freaking time no matter how I ask for it. ("808s and Heartbreak is only available with Amazon Music Unlimited," I'm always told, even though the album is very much available on my linked streaming service, Apple Music.)
To get around this or any other music request Alexa routinely borks -- like trying to get your Echo speaker to play anything by Chvrches (pronounced "churches") or !!! ("chk chk chk") -- I create a playlist in Apple Music, then ask for the playlist by name ("Alexa, play 'the greatest hip-hop album of all time' playlist," "play 'Chvrches' playlist," "play 'exclamation point' playlist, etc.).
Someone is named Alexa -- or Alex or Alexis
Considering the nightmare I experience when I'm on a call with an Amazon rep -- even if I mute the Echo Show 5 at my desk, another Alexa device elsewhere in the house invariably hears me every time I say the "A" word -- I can only imagine the horror if someone actually named Alexa ever came over (or worse, lived in the same house).
On those work calls, I've started using the code name given to Alexa on the Internet of Things podcast -- "Madam A" -- but that wouldn't work with an actual human named Alexa, let alone for my brother Alex, the utterance of whose name has accidentally summoned Alexa on more than one occasion.
You can summon your Amazon digital voice assistant with "Alexa," "Amazon," "Echo" or "Computer."
Chris Monroe/CNET
I don't really worry about it when my brother comes over, since it happens so infrequently, but if you often find your Alexa devices perking up when you're not actually talking to them, you may want to choose a different wake word than " Alexa" ("Amazon," "Echo" or just "Computer" are also options).
1. Open the Alexa app and tap More in the lower right corner, then tap Settings.
2. Tap Device Settings then find the device whose wake word you'd like to change and tap on it.
3. Scroll down to almost the bottom and tap Wake Word, then tap which one you'd like to use.
4. Tap the back button (<) in the upper left corner twice to return to the list of devices; repeat as needed for your other Echo speakers or displays.
You and Alexa have a failure to communicate
Communication problems can hinder any relationship, but the upside to having them with a digital voice assistant is that there may be a technological solution. If it seems like the problem is with Alexa straight-up misunderstanding you (I know my acquired Kentucky drawl can sometimes get in the way of voice dictation), try using Alexa's voice training feature.
1. Open the Alexa app, tape More in the lower right corner, tap Settings, then tap Your Profile at the top.
2. Next to Voice, tap Create (or Manage if you've already done this before and want to redo it) and follow the prompts from there.
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Home composting is a great way to help the environment and make the most of your food waste—but starting out can be intimidating. You have to learn what can be composted, how to dispose of and use composted materials, and which compost container is best for your home. For the latter, Amazon shoppers have discovered a small, convenient compost bin for beginners and experts alike: OXO’s Good Grips Easy Clean Compost Bin.
While some indoor compost bins are difficult to clean and others are tricky to empty, reviewers say the OXO compost bin bypasses these common criticisms. This particular model has a small footprint, a sleek and modern look, and a thoughtful design that keeps odors locked in and pests out.
To buy: OXO Good Grips Easy Clean Compost Bin, $20 at amazon.com
“So many things to love about this little can,” one reviewer wrote. “It's small enough to be inconspicuous on the counter-top, but large enough to hold about a week's worth of compost. The lid lifts easily so you can be cutting veggies with one hand and lift the lid and toss scraps with the other… Cleaning is a breeze, and finally, the grey color looks inconspicuously lovely on my gray marble countertop.”
Another customer was pleased to find the OXO compost bin eliminated their fruit fly problem entirely. “We eat TONS of fruit in the house. [We’re] huge banana lovers and it’s hard to keep fruit flies away when there are always some peels in the trash for them to lay eggs in,” they wrote. “This thing is perfect. I've actually gotten fruit flies into the house because the outdoor composter is not that far away (we don't have a big lot of land), and the flies just die right away cause they can't find anything to eat or lay eggs in. It's been awesome. I no longer panic when I see a single fruit fly.”
Other admired features are the compost container’s ease of use, especially with messy scraps. “Honestly, I spent way too much time researching options for a countertop compost bin and I'm glad I did,” a reviewer wrote. “This one is perfect and the reason I love it is its simplicity and ease of opening. I can have two hands full of scraps and just use the back of my hand to open this, drop the scraps in and let it close in less than a second.”
Just a few days after Spotify launched in India back in 2019, I hopped on a flight with a bunch of songs downloaded in the app for my journey. But the moment I turned on airplane mode, there was no sign of my downloaded tracks. The horror!
It’s currently hard to find your downloads in the Spotify app, even if you switch to the offline mode by going to Settings > Playback > Offline mode (who designed it this way, really?).
Offline listeners can celebrate at last: Spotify has finally found some time in between its rush to acquire other companies, and built-in a button to filter your downloads, so they’re easy to retrieve.
The is rolling out a new mobile app design change for the Your Library section that will introduce filter bubbles such as Playlists, Artist, Albums and Podcasts & shows. Plus, THERE IS A DOWNLOAD FILTER
Spotify’s library redesign
That makes it way easier to filter your on-device music when you’re in a flight, or your internet connection is wonky. Plus, you can combine the downloaded filter with albums or playlist filters to make the search even more of a breeze. Notably, downloads are only available to premium users worldwide. But select markets like India also have this option for free users.
In addition to this, the company is introducing pinned podcast/albums, new sorting options, and a grid view. But I’m most thankful for the new download button.
This update will start rolling out to Spotify’s iOS and Android app in the coming days.
You can check out all the new features for the Your Library section here.
When it comes to esports, some advertisers see themselves more like a commissioner than a sponsor.
Clothing retailer Hollister is joining a growing list of advertisers that include Budweiser Lite and Wendy’s that aren’t content with playing the role of the free-spending sponsor. They’re trying to build their own mini-events around some of the most popular titles as a way to avoid coming across as cold, corporate sponsors to a gaming audience notorious for being ad-resistant.
Hollister has been running a month-long Fortnite tournament to promote a new range of clothing for gamers. This new collection is available at Hollister stores globally and online and includes graphic tees, shorts, loungewear, windbreakers and socks.
The tournament itself sees participants partner with one another to form a duo that goes on to compete for a range of prizes including Hollister gift cards, Fortnite V-bucks and a personalized gaming hoodie from the retailer’s collection.
Hollister is running the competition from an app that will allow players to create their teams and then compete for the prizes. Mobile app for gamers Mission Control is providing the platform for the competition, where the duos are able to communicate with one another as well as check out their standings in the tournament.
“It’s relatively easy as a brand to put your name on something and let it live and continue to fuel it with paid media,” said Jacee Scoular, director of brand marketing strategy at Hollister. “We wanted to do something different. This isn’t an activation where you have to come out on top to ‘win’. It’s about doing something that you already enjoy doing and having a shot at being rewarded, whether you’re the best player inside the game or the worst.”
In many ways, the title has reinvigorated casual gaming for a wide range of audiences, not just hardcore gamers. Indeed, people boot up the game for a variety of reasons, from hanging out with friends to building their own maps, so it attracts more types of players than a typical game. Plus, having up to 100 players in real-time creates for a much larger live experience than most games, and that has fueled that actual spectating of the game. This is why it is so unique for advertisers. If done right, they can reach both players and spectators, which is not something typical of many other games.
“Fortnite is one of the largest, most accessible games out there and it ranks among the top five games most loved games among our generation z target demographic,” said Scoular. “This is our first foray into thinking about competitive gaming in a way that makes sense to us and with a brand like Fortnite.
Given the campaign is still going, Hollister was unable to share any stats. Still, early signs suggest it has been well received by fans, said Scoular. Needless to say, there are already ideas for a follow-up, especially now that there’s a community around the tournament.
There’s a lot of heavy lifting that went into encouraging players to take part in the tournament. So it’s unlikely this will be a one-and-done campaign. Now, it has a community on the app that’s engaged in its event, Hollister is thinking about other ways it could create programming around it.
“Until now gaming campaigns have been difficult to activate, with bespoke formats, limited targeting, brand suitability concerns and lack of measurement,” said Samuel Huber, CEO of gaming ad tech vendor Admix. “This is changing fast, with several disruptive innovators working on the infrastructure to turn gaming into a scalable and profitable media channel i.e. programmatic delivery from existing DSPs, brand safety categorization, and third party measurement.”
Brand-led events around gaming are becoming increasingly commonplace from advertisers, particularly those that aren’t endemic to the world of gamers. Budweiser Light did this last September when it launched the “Battle of the Best” tournament where some of Twitch’s top streamers and personalities competed against each other in a medley of games.
April 30, 2021 at 11:08AM
https://digiday.com/marketing/its-easy-to-put-your-name-on-something-hollister-on-why-owning-not-sponsoring-esports-events-is-working-for-its-brand/
‘It’s easy to put your name on something’: Hollister on why owning, not sponsoring esports events is working for its brand - Digiday
A juror who cast one of the unanimous votes to convict a white former Minneapolis police officer in George Floyd's death said Wednesday that deliberations were relaxed and methodical as he and 11 other jurors quickly talked their way to agreement in parts of just two days.
April 30, 2021 at 12:20AM
https://mooresvilletribune.com/news/chauvin-juror-after-trial-verdict-was-easy-part/video_18b173f4-c976-5c8e-bade-ef205fde0f96.html
Chauvin juror: After trial, verdict was easy part - Mooresville Tribune
President Joe Biden and his education secretary Miguel Cardona have been clear: they want to close America’s school funding gaps.
“Across the nation, schools with the most students of color received, on average, dramatically less funding than majority-white schools,” Cardona tweeted last week.
Biden has already proposed increasing federal spending on schools by doubling funding for Title I. Now, the White House is indicating it wants to go further, pushing states to change how they allocate funding to schools and addressing the problem at its root.
“Under the President’s proposal the new funds for Title I will provide meaningful incentives for states to examine and address inequalities in their school funding systems,” a White House official, who was not authorized to speak publicly, told Chalkbeat. “We look forward to working with Congress to advance this goal.”
The administration has offered no other details about how such an incentive scheme might work, and any effort by federal officials to get involved in local decisions about how to fund schools is shot through with political peril. It’s not at all clear whether the plan will draw support from key lawmakers and education groups, how much political muscle Biden would put behind this, and whether states would respond if it did become reality.
“There are hurdles in any route they go,” said Michael Dannenberg, who as a congressional aide helped craft changes to the Title I formula and is currently a vice president at Democrats For Education Reform.
But if enacted, such an incentive program has the potential to reshape funding for America’s schools, most of which comes from state and local governments.
High-poverty school districts get notably less state and local funding than affluent districts in 20 states, a recent report found using data from 2018. In the most extreme cases, like Nevada, New Hampshire, Illinois, Delaware, and Maine, high-poverty school districts face disparities of 20 percent or more.
“It is just so critical that these [federal] dollars be used to drive change at the state and local level,” said Ary Amerikaner of The Education Trust, an education and civil rights group pushing for such an effort. “That’s where the ball game is.”
Those advocates see this as an opportune moment. Evidence hasgrown that more money for schools typically improves student outcomes. And though the three stimulus packages have sent large sums of federal money to high-poverty schools, that money will run out. If states can use this period to rework their funding formulas so that, in a few years, high-poverty schools get more, it could help those schools avoid the dreaded “funding cliff.”
“What we don’t want to see happen is we find ourselves two, three years from now with a cliff that doesn’t make it possible for any progress that we saw in the next couple years to continue,” said Khalil Harris, managing director of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. She co-authored a report last year that proposed a version of this idea, of pushing states to change their own funding formulas. (One of the other authors, Scott Sargrad, is now deputy chief of staff in Biden’s education department.)
The path from this idea to high-poverty schools seeing more state dollars, though, is circuitous and fraught.
First off, such a plan would have to get through Congress. Some Congressional Democrats say they are focused on increasing Title I funding, and are wary of connecting that to controversial additional proposals.
“When you think about the political sensitivities around this right now,” said a Democratic House education aide, “we are very concerned.” The aide, who was not authorized to speak publicly, cited recent articles and reports critiquing the distribution of Title I money, which is largely based on the number of low-income students in an area.
Dangling federal money to get states to make education policy changes also remains a dicey proposition in the wake of Race to the Top, the Obama-era program that encouraged states to adopt the Common Core standards and revamp their teacher evaluations and later prompted a backlash. An incentive fund that Biden proposed as part of the stimulus was scrapped after some groups viewed it as akin to Race to the Top.
“Race to the Top burned a lot of people,” Harris said.
One education group is already sounding a lukewarm note, saying the federal government’s focus should be on making sure its own dollars are doled out effectively, not trying to influence states.
“If you’re using a heavy-handed carrot, it becomes even more important for the federal government to have its own house in order,” said Noelle Ellerson Ng of AASA, the school superintendents association. “We’re going to prioritize getting the federal formula right first.”
Additionally, pushing states to change their formulas would only help close one kind of funding gap facing American schools: the kind between a poorer district and its wealthy neighbors. But that’s not a universal issue. While some states spend less on high-poverty schools, many others spend more. Differences in spending between states, like Alabama and Massachusetts, drive national divides in school spending.
“The sweeping assertions of inequitable finance within states are inaccurate,” said Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “The big differences are state to state, but that also reflects economies and cost of living.”
Still, any increase in Title I funding is likely to help high-poverty districts and those serving more students of color, narrowing those gaps across states.
If the Biden administration ties some of that increase to state-level changes, the question will be, will states respond?
Debates about funding formulas can consume state politics, and making changes is inevitably controversial, particularly if they mean some districts lose money. To get states to move, then, the carrot might have to be really large. In fact, Title I already has incentives meant to push states to spend more on their schools, but there’s little evidence they have made much difference.
“I think it requires massive and massive amounts of money,” said Dannenberg.
The White House official indicated that the incentives would come at least partially from this new $20 billion Biden has proposed for Title I. If passed, that increase would be the largest in the program’s history, but it’s unclear if the amounts would be enough of a lure for states.
And if a state kept a formula deemed inequitable and lost out on new federal funds, that could leave its students doubly disadvantaged. Even with a big incentive, “you may still have some states that say, screw it, we’re going to go rogue,” said Bruce Baker, a school funding researcher at Rutgers University.
GREENVILLE, S.C. (WSPA)–It has become easier than ever to find a vaccine appointment in South Carolina. Now, a local company is offering an even quicker and more simple solution.
Some say, it’s as easy as going to the bank.
“I checked the website this morning actually, and I wanted to find the J&J,” Jim Fritzsche, who got the vaccine, said.
The convenience of getting the one-shot vaccine in an easy drive-thru setting was key for him.
“I’m a busy man I didn’t want to have to come back a second time and wait in line near my office so this turned out to be super,” he said.
It’s something being offered by testing company ARCpoint Labs.
“You can schedule online. You pull up, you get one shot, you don’t even have to come back a second time with the J&J,” John Constantine, President and CEO of ARCpoint Franchise Group, said.
When the pandemic hit, Constantine said knew they could help with testing.
“Our core competence is serving businesses and their employers with drug testing, background checks, wellness checkups, those types of things,” he said.
And the next logical step was bringing the same expertise and ease to vaccinations.
“So as soon as vaccines became available we thought wow what a better way to serve the community again by offering vaccines through drive thru convenience so they can get it fast and easy without even leaving their car,” Constantine said.
ARCpoint is partnering with Grace Church at their locations in Simpsonville for the Johnson and Johnson and on Pelham Road for Moderna. They’re also offering clinics for businesses and non-profits that want to make it easier on their staff.
“We come to you, we provide the vaccine, and you can get back to your life,” Constantine said.
For Fritzche, the decision was an easy one–so he could get back to things like football games and traveling.
“I own property in Canada so I know they’re going to require that shot to cross the boarder,” he said.
And he’s well on his way.
You do need an appointment for a vaccine and you can do that right online.
Out of all the things we do associated with food — shopping, cooking and eating — shopping is the least enjoyable for many. Driving to the store is the easy part. Once you get there, you white knuckle your cart around, trying to avoid hitting the children running around and being patient when someone parks their cart in the middle of the aisle. When you find everything you need, you wait for a while, then cough up your hard earned money before you drive home. Shopping is not the easiest food related task, but it is a necessary one. Below are some tips for what to purchase, and how to avoid doing what the store wants you to do.
Avoid the Middle Aisles
This age old piece of advice is helpful for the inexperienced shopper. Heavily processed and sweetened foods are often concentrated in central locations, with the more familiar food products such as fruits, vegetables, grains and breads located on the perimeter. However, there are healthful choices in central locations, such as whole grain pastas, nuts and grains. There are also items on the outside of the store that are unhealthy. Processed meats, sweetened juices and baked goods that some perceive as healthy should be consumed in moderation. This rule of thumb, however, is useful for starters, with the main idea being to avoid walking down each aisle. This bad habit takes more time and could lead you to buying something you won’t eat.
Purchase more frozen foods
Frozen foods can be a great addition to a healthy diet — if you buy the right ones. Vegetables and fruits can be thawed easily, and then used for snacks, desserts or smoothies in a pinch. Contrary to what you may believe, frozen fruits and vegetables may contain more nutrients than their fresh counterparts. Fresh options, which are picked and transported great distances and displayed until sold, can quickly lose nutritional value. Frozen options are picked at peak ripeness and frozen shortly after, maintaining optimal nutrition for months on end. Also, because they do not go bad for long periods of time, they are student friendly (canned foods are too but have less nutrients). This means if that bag of frozen corn resurfaces months after you buy it, you can still make an appetizing side dish with it.
Enter the store with a plan
Shopping with a list is an excellent start, but you should stick to it with few exceptions to have the most successful grocery run. Avoid sale items you would not otherwise purchase unless you recognize them as healthy options. Think critically about new products you see and decide how you could use them before buying them because they catch your attention. Failing to have a plan to stick to is only going to result in more money spent and more food wasted in the long run.
Shop at grocery stores if possible
It’s easy to fall into the trap of convenience stores, but they frequently cost far more than regular grocers. Avoiding purchases at gas stations and corner stores is a great way to reduce food costs. However, do not eliminate farmer’s markets and similar venues where you can buy fresh produce and support local farmers. These options ensure you are getting a quality product while supporting your immediate community. They also offer foods you may not see at your grocery store, which you can use to experiment with for new meals.
Stick to basics
Fruits and vegetables are always good choices, as are most things you could recognize as natural. As a student, stick to ones you don’t need to prepare to eat, such as potatoes, bananas, apples and carrots. For meal bases, look at rice and pastas for filling, tasty options that go well with most vegetables and proteins. As for proteins, pick something that is quick and easy to make. Maybe use peanut butter or eggs for breakfast, beans for lunch and a low fat cut of meat like chicken or turkey for dinner.
If you’re looking to maximize your food dollar and your time, try to go to the store once a week and buy many of the same things each week, varying your seasonings and sauces to keep things interesting. Once you get to the store, stick to your list but allow yourself a choice product or two that you did not have on your list if you want to keep a variety of options for meals.
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Grocery shopping is a vital part of healthy eating, but it takes time to become acquainted with what stores have to offer, what to look for and learn what products you like best. Creating a list of staples to always have and swapping herbs/seasonings in and out is a simple, cost-effective way to have flavorful meals you won’t get tired of eating. Stick to foods you like and are familiar with but allow yourself some freedom to try new foods when something catches your eye. Buy foods you know you like that will last for a while and can be used in different dishes — dishes that can be found on websites like Pinterest or through online recipe sites. By following these rules, you can become comfortable with a handful of recipes that are fast, healthy and keep your mind and body running smoothly.
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April 29, 2021 at 05:00PM
https://www.post-gazette.com/life/recipes/2021/04/29/carnitas-mexican-food-recipe-cinco-de-mayo-slow-cooker-easy-dinner/stories/202104160130
Gretchen's table: Easy carnitas for some tasty Cinco de Mayo tacos - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Plenty of large corporations have pledged to reach net-zero emissions in their business models by certain timelines in the not-so-distant but distant enough future, like 2050. But the meaningfulness of those commitments is unclear to many in the investment community.
Net-zero is but one letter away from being "not-zero," pointed out Mark Campanale, founder and executive chair of think tank Carbon Tracker, during a panel discussion at the recent GreenFin event "The Transition to Zero." A joke, but a good point.
"What you’ve got is a whole series of plans which don’t add up to anything credible in particular," he said.
During the panel, Emilie Mazzacurati, global head of climate solutions at ratings firm Moody’s, said many banks and investors she works with want to understand with more clarity how the ambitious climate commitments companies are making translate into potential financial impacts and credit risk. "It does take people outside of their comfort zone a little bit because it requires climate scientists to work with economists and credit risk modelers to become really well versed in oil and gas technology," she said.
The reality is that these companies making the big claims have little to no track record of pulling through on plans this big and consequential — or long-term. That’s understandable, given that a climate crisis never has threatened humanity like the one the business world is trying to combat right now. Even using past large-scale business successes to extrapolate into this environmental arena is speculative. Nevertheless, there are ways to set accountability mechanisms — we just haven’t seen many yet, according to the GreenFin panelists.
Mamadou-Abou Sarr, president and chief executive of V-Square Quantitative Management, noted that few metrics, financial or environmental, are in place for a C-suite leader to be able to look back to evaluate their progress.
When corporations push a goal to 2030, 2050 or onwards, nearly none of the people currently in leadership positions will still be around to be benchmarked against what they committed to achieve. Take Unilever, which pledged in 2015 to source "all of its energy from renewable generating resources by 2030" but took on a new CEO in 2019. "Accountability will actually be in the eyes of the beholder," Sarr said, but that will require specific reporting tools and regulations that will allow companies to benchmark their progress.
Accountability also will require standardization in terminology, the panelists noted. Douglas Grim, senior investment strategist at investment firm Vanguard, said the challenge is putting an expectation on companies to be very explicit and descriptive in what their labels mean. This could mean transparency about nuances such as which companies are measuring emissions intensity versus which companies are measuring regular carbon emissions, for example.
Climate change is a material risk, Grim said, and it can affect a firm’s future revenues and liabilities — such as physical, reputational or regulatory risks, consumer preference changes or technology disruption. These are all risks that Wall Street needs to consider in planning not only how to survive, but how to thrive, he said.
Grim has seen a progressive shift in his clients, who increasingly ask him if exchange traded funds (ETFs) or other mechanisms are available to participate in and get exposure to renewables, he said.
There’s an increasingly common process in which ETFs are able to rebrand themselves as ESG funds without actually changing anything besides how they are presented, the panelists noted. Campanale referenced BlackRock’s new ETF, which includes Exxon.
"I think when [investors] saw the word transition against the BlackRock fund’s name, I think they probably, probably, thought they were going to be finding companies which are going to be leading the charge or beneficiaries of the transition or helping the transition. And so in that sense, maybe they’ve misunderstood," Campanale said.
This marketing tactic is not exclusive to securities. It’s used in just about every industry, from retail to water.
"When you look at the holdings," Campanale said, "the holdings are almost exactly the same as the non-ESG funds. I think that really is the challenge our industry is facing is, ‘Are we leading the public down the path of thinking we’ve got the right answers here?’ And I’m just not sure we have."
Companies that report using the recommendations from the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) are required to produce scenario analyses — essentially, a tool used to explore and prepare for the ever-changing possibilities of what the future could hold. Campanele has seen that almost all companies are publishing scenarios showing business as usual, meaning that oil and gas companies are forecasting 20-30 percent growth in demand for oil and gas. He thinks that companies should be required to report against Paris Agreement-aligned stress tests.
Campanale and Grim both agree on a need for more standardization for accounting standards surrounding the treatment of high carbon assets for what data companies collectively should be using in order to set targets appropriately. Grim thinks that constructive debates and conversations, presumably like the one he was participating in, can help.
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) - Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have sent a letter to cruise lines Thursday saying they may be able to resume voyages by this July, however, there are some rules they'll have to follow.
"Over the past month, senior leadership from CDC have met twice-weekly with representatives from cruise lines to discuss the Framework for Conditional Sailing Order (CSO). Within these meetings, participants asked questions and discussed the fastest path back to sailing without compromising safety. Today, in response to the industry’s feedback, CDC announced five key clarifications with the existing CSO framework," a statement from a CDC representative sent to WFLA said.
Welcome to Speak Easy, the Alexandria Times’ first podcast. Each month, our reporters will sit down with noteworthy residents, business owners, artists and community leaders to chat about all things Alexandria. Don’t worry about missing an episode; Speak Easy is available on the Apple Podcast app, Google Play and Spotify, and all episodes will be archived on the Times website.
Episode Zero: What is Speak Easy?
Ahead of the launch of the Alexandria Times’ first podcast, Speak Easy, reporter Cody Mello-Klein and editor Missy Schrott sit down to answer your biggest question: What is Speak Easy? They also introduce themselves and reveal the podcast’s first guest.
Episode One: Pat Miller
Alexandria Times reporter Cody Mello-Klein welcomes Del Ray philanthropist, activist and all-around good neighbor Pat Miller to the first episode of Speak Easy. Pat talks about how she first got into building community in Del Ray, the origins of Art on the Avenue, her work with the Alexandria Domestic Violence Shelter and how her pickup truck became a Del Ray icon.
Episode Two: Teddy Kim
Local developer Teddy Kim is bringing change to a city he has called home his whole life. Alexandria Times reporter Cody Mello-Klein sits down with Kim to discuss his memories of Alexandria in the 80s, the changing face of the city, gentrification and balancing history and possibility in redevelopment.
Episode 3: Olalekan Jeyifous
Olalekan Jeyifous, a Brooklyn-based artist, stopped by the studio to talk about his waterfront public art installation for the city, “Wrought, Knit, Labors, Legacies.” Jeyifous sat down with Times reporter Cody Mello-Klein to talk about everything from African megacities and solar punk to the power of architecture and making art for Starbucks.
Episode 4: Dr. Stephen Haering
For the first episode of Speak Easy in the age of social distancing, it seemed appropriate to sit down (remotely) with Alexandria Health Department Director Dr. Stephen Haering. Times reporter Cody Mello-Klein and Haering discuss how Haering became head of the AHD, his work spearheading the city’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and how he is personally coping in a socially distanced world.
Episode 5: James Ross
The music director for the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, James Ross, stopped by the Times’ virtual studio to chat about music during the pandemic. Ross discusses his musical upbringing, playing music in East Germany at 22 years old, what actually goes into conducting an orchestra and how the ASO is adapting to the pandemic.
Episode 6: Tom Gale
Virtue Feed & Grain’s bourbon expert Tom Gale talks with Times editor Missy Schrott about his passion for spirits, Virginia’s storied bourbon past and what it’s been like working in the restaurant industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Episode 7: John Chapman
Councilor John Chapman joins Speak Easy to talk about what inspired him to get involved in local politics, his work uncovering the city’s Black history for Manumission Tour Company and the current state of race relations in Alexandria.
Episode 8: Stephanie Landrum
As CEO and president of the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership, Stephanie Landrum has been involved in some of Alexandria’s most significant developmental and economic efforts over the past few years. Landrum stops by the virtual Speak Easy studio to talk about securing Amazon’s HQ2 and AEDP’s work supporting the local economy during COVID-19.
Episode 9: Michael Pope
Journalist and author Michael Pope, whose work has appeared on Virginia Public Radio and in the Alexandria Gazette-Packet, stops by Speak Easy to talk about how he got into journalism, his stint leading ghost tours, reporting during the pandemic and the quirky side of Virginia politics and history.
Episode 10: Wellington Watts
In honor of Halloween, Wellington Watts, president of Alexandria Colonial Tours, stopped by for a special episode of Speak Easy. Watts talks about how he got into the business of giving ghost tours and the lasting appeal of ghost stories. He even shares a few of the city’s most infamous spooky tales.
Episode 11: Heather Rosner
George Mason Elementary School music teacher Heather Rosner has made it her life’s work to ensure all students have access to the world of music. Alexandria Times intern Lindsey Sullivan chats with Rosner about some of the challenges she has faced as a teacher in the age of virtual learning and how she is adapting and continuing to provide students access to music during the pandemic.
Episode 12: 2020 Year in Review
The Times looks back on a year’s worth of conversations with the people who make Alexandria tick by connecting all those conversations in one special year-end episode.
Episode 13: Jarreau Williams
Speak Easy kicks of 2021 with special guest Jarreau Williams, the singer and frontman for the Jarreau Williams Experience. Williams spoke about his musical influences, approach to songwriting, how he was affected and inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests and what it’s been like as a musician during the pandemic.
Episode 14: Robin Hamilton
Emmy-award winning journalist and documentary filmmaker Robin Hamilton stopped by Speak Easy to chat about her latest film, “Our Alexandria,” which tells the story of two residents who have captured the city’s segregated past through their detailed dollhouses. Hamilton detailed the story behind the documentary, her filmmaking process, how memory and nostalgia played a role in the film and the value of local stories.
Episode 15: Bryan Porter
Alexandria Commonwealth’s Attorney Bryan Porter stopped by Speak Easy to talk about the infamous Charles Severance case, the psychological hazards of his job, his formative experiences in the Alexandria Police Department and the changing culture of law enforcement in Northern Virginia.
Episode 16: Brandon Byrd
Brandon Byrd, owner of the renowned local frozen custard shop Goodies, stopped by this month to talk about how he went from studying kinesiology to selling custard, the lasting appeal of soul music and Goodies’ first brick and mortar location at the old Alexandria ice house.
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