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In this episode, we explore the false dichotomy between the "Good Socialist" and the "Bad Communist." This is the idea that one can separate oneself from anti-communism by dissing communism. However, with the State Department's release of Cuba: The Capital of the 21st Century, targeting anything progressive as "domestic terrorism, it becomes clearer that everyone marginally left is a target. Historically, Black people, whether left-wing or not, are vulnerable to these types of red scares, and thus should be prepared. To help us discuss these dilemmas, we bring on a friend of the show, Dr. Charise Burden-Stelly. She is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at Wayne State University and the author of the book Black Scare / Red Scare: Theorizing Capitalist Racism in the United States. We discuss anti-communism, what it is, the contradictions it creates, and ways to remain principled in combating it. We also look at the way Anti-communism is weaponized to target Black radical movements.  This is part 1 of 2. For Patreon subscribers who want to listen to both parts, part 2 is available. If you're not a subscriber, please sign up.  https://www.patreon.com/c/blackmyths Dr. CBS https://www.charisseburdenstelly.com/ Myth: Communism Made Me Do It https://www.youtube.com/live/ZXuC-rPwYZ8?is=3eiIf9R9MGp34P30 Myth: Communism Made Me Do It Pt. 2 https://www.youtube.com/live/V4OSrY-tFvY?is=KkWz1ct4YzATtlsv Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism https://www.state.gov/cuba-the-capital-of-21st-century-communism NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM/NSPM-7 https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/09/countering-domestic-terrorism-and-organized-political-violence/

We are back with round 2. But this isnt some rigged fight for pay per view. This is Campbelltown in a glass. History and liquid included. I cant wait for yall to see this. And Andy thank you again. Be Blessedus.glenscotia.comPatreon.com/offtopicwhiskeyBadmotivatorbarrels.com/shop/?aff=3https://www.instagram.com/zsmithwhiskeyandmixology?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==Campbeltown is a small town in Argyll and Bute in Scotland, situated on the Kintyre Peninsula, bordered by the Mull of Kintyre to the West and the Kilbrannan Sound to the East. Historically, Campbeltown was a significant centre for whisky production, fishing, and ship building. Our Campbeltown home was once known as the “whisky capital of the world” due to the rich heritage in whisky production. Our location inspires our signature style in all of our single malts, giving our whiskies a unique maritime coastal Campbeltown influence. Campbeltown has a rich maritime and industrial past, and while whisky production remains an important part of the local economy, the towns industries have diversified over the years. Fishing, tourism, agriculture, and service industries now also contribute to Campbeltown's economy. Campbeltown Cross is a prominent symbol of the town's heritage and history, standing proud in the town centre since the 14th century. The Cross originally served as a market cross, where merchants would gather and conduct trade. The Campbeltown Cross has various decorative details and carvings, depicting religious scenes, heraldic motifs, and medieval icons which reflect the craftmanship of the local town. Such icons are prominent in our ‘Icons of Campbeltown' range of limited edition whiskies.  Throughout the year, Campbeltown hosts various cultural events and festivals, celebrating music, arts and local traditions. Every year the town hosts the Campbeltown Malts Festival, when we host our annual Whisky Dinner and Distillery Open Day. Community is at the heart of Campbeltown, and we do our upmost at Glen Scotia to support our local community. We donate to local charities and groups throughout the year, and we support a huge variety of local events and fundraising. To name a few, we support our annual Mull of Kintyre 10k and Half Marathon, the annual Mull of Kintyre Music Festival, and each Christmas we run a festive whisky tasting and donate all proceeds to a local charity or community group.750ml • 40% ABV$69.99A unique flavour profile of rich oils, green fruits and citrus, and our signature maritime nuances.See the earlier release of Glen Scotia Double Cask in its previous bottle designA unique flavour profile of rich oils, green fruits and citrus, and our signature maritime nuances.Seaspray, sliced apple, lemon zest and toasted oakSyrup, melted brown sugar, orange marmalade,tangy pineapple, creamy oak vanillaLong with gentle ground ginger andcinnamon spicinessAs far as Scotch distilleries go, the home of Glen Scotia has a story (and a single malt whisky) for everyone. The Glen Scotia scotch whisky distillery in Campbeltown is one with an illustrious past and irresistible present.The Glen Scotia distillery is one of the smallest Scotch whisky distilleries but one of the big names in Campbeltown, the former whisky capital of the world.Our historical distillery still maintains much of its original design dating from the 1830s — including the mash tun, stillroom and dunnage warehouse — so our celebrated heritage and history influence the award winning whisky produced here.The last century saw turbulent times for Campbeltown whisky distillers, yet our legacy endures.Rich in original features and equipment, the Glen Scotia Distillery in Campbeltown is an evocative and unique place to work and visit for whisky tours. We work hard to maintain the distillery's historic buildings and whisky making process with care and pride.

Noah Hopton, CEO and Founder of Finvisor, helps startups and growing businesses simplify operations by building integrated back-office teams that combine accounting, finance, payroll, HR, insurance, and technology. By combining experienced financial professionals with modern technology, Noah enables businesses to streamline operations, stay compliant, and focus on sustainable growth.  In this conversation, Noah introduces The Adjacent Extension Framework—Earn the Trust, Build the Relationship, Listen for Other Problems, Connect Other Specialists, and Empower the Team with Tech. He explains why proactive service creates lasting client relationships, how solving adjacent business challenges leads to sustainable growth, and why integrated back-office teams outperform disconnected vendors. Noah also shares how AI is reshaping finance operations by automating repetitive work, empowering finance professionals to focus on strategic decision-making, and helping businesses leverage technology to enhance—not replace—human expertise. — How to Outsource Your Back Office with Noah Hopton  Good day, listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and my guest today is Noah Hopton, the CEO and Founder of Finvisor, helping seed and Series A companies that have outgrown spreadsheets and part-time bookkeepers but aren’t ready for a full-time finance team yet. Their job is to give you the financial clarity to make good decisions at every stage of growth. Noah, welcome to the show.  Yeah. Pleasure to be here, Steve.  Well, great to have you here, and I’m very curious about your career and your business and what you built here. I’m particularly curious about your personal ‘Why’ and how you manifest it in your business.  Personal ‘Why.’ That’s great. Well, I’ll be honest, I didn’t go in thinking I was going to be an accountant or run an accounting firm. You know, I studied accounting in school. Eventually, I thought I was going to probably be more in a kind of front-of-house sales relationship because I enjoyed the people part—making relationships and meeting people.  But I was very fortunate that I found the consulting, fractional CFO world, where I got to discover a love of problem-solving, creating relationships, and creating value for clients. For me, it was kind of this love of helping clients understand their business, helping clients understand what to think about around the corner, where it's not just being in-house with one set of books that you're closing.Share on X  When you’re at Finvisor, my day-to-day, at least when I started, was probably working with 10 to 12 clients a month and helping them understand, “Okay, how did they perform last month? Can they hire a certain number of people? And what’s the plan going forward?”  Yeah, I mean, that’s super helpful. I started life in accounting as well with KPMG, and what attracted me was to essentially have that language of business so that I would be able to understand how a business works and have this confidence of not flying blind, right? That’s really, really cool. So how did you evolve from a CFO into a founder? What was the trigger point for you?  So I was very fortunate. I actually was at a prior firm at one point when I started my career, and they were a little bit like the cobbler with bad shoes, where eventually they decided they had to close shop, and clients were going to be given notice. I, myself, was given notice saying, “Hey, in a week, you’re not going to have a job, Noah.” And so I was really given this moment in life, saying, “Hey, if I enjoy what I’ve been doing, do I think I could do it better than the firm I’d been at?  And do I want to make this leap into being a founder and starting a business?” And so my co-founder and I both talked to each other and said, “Look, we love our clients. We love what we’ve been trying to build. I think we just need to do a little bit of a refresh and restructuring of how this operates.” And so we started our own company. I was very lucky that I started with about, I had about 30 clients and a team of four on day one, which I think is unusual.  Most people in the accounting space start off as a one-person shop, trying to grow from one to two, and having to double their clients or double their size to get there. We were fortunate to have five team members and 30 clients on day one. Originally, our vision was just, “Hey, let’s help with the fractional CFO and the bookkeeping,” but that really evolved over time as we added additional services and really understood where our clients were having problems in their back office.  What are the areas where maybe the insurance brokers they’d been working with weren’t very hands-on and kind of came in once a year? Our clients were asking us, as their CFO, “Hey, can you help us select our health insurance?” And we’re like, “Well, we’re kind of doing the broker’s job. Why don’t we build out our own team?” So that was one of the first verticals we moved into and added by building an insurance brokerage. From there, we kept building, where now not only do you have your CFO and accountant helping you, but you also have them with the ability to go out to market, help you compare quotes, and help get your insurance in place. So you’re essentially expanding the array of virtual services that you’re providing, or fractional services that you’re providing, to your clients?  Correct. Yeah. We really try to own the full back office end to end because I think a lot of people deal with, “Okay, great, I have a bookkeeper, I have a tax accountant, I have an R&D tax provider,” and they’re dealing with four or five different vendors that don’t really communicate. The client is the person playing telephone between the two, and we’re like, “Wait, stop. Why is this the solution?” We should just build a different business where it’s all under the Finvisor umbrella.  It’s all full-time team members who are actually working together on behalf of the client, even if fractionally. Some of our clients only need five hours of a payroll specialist, but they need someone to own that role, and they need that person to be able to talk to their sales tax team because it’s like, “Oh, we hired someone in a new state. Is sales tax applicable there?” And connect those dots because, when you have these disconnected providers, you have a lot of things that can drop because they’re not in people’s field of view.  Yeah, I mean, it’s a great service. If you can get a competent team that will take care of your back office, then you can focus on figuring out message-market fit and then essentially scaling revenue. You don’t have to worry about it, and you don’t have to babysit inexperienced people that maybe you can afford to hire, but who would not be able to own the job.  Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s kind of the, “Do you want to…” You know, I think at least when we started in 2014, there was more of a generalist bookkeeper. That’s kind of the typical solution people went with. Nothing against that, but it’s kind of nice to have dedicated specialists in the different back-office areas that you need. I mean, bookkeepers are great.  They’re usually not your best payroll and HR people. They’re not thinking about California final-paycheck laws, or whether you need to offer a 401(k) if you hire someone in California. Whereas, if you have someone whose entire job is payroll and HR, and you need Finvisor to help run your payroll, they’re going to be thinking about those edge cases and helping you along so that you can just build your business, get to the next milestone, and not worry about tripping yourself up because of compliance, taxes, or a lack of visibility in your reporting. Yeah, that’s great peace of mind. So this podcast is about frameworks, and I wonder, what is your framework? How do you help your clients, or how do you figure things out? What have you developed? We’re about 400 frameworks in, so I’m looking for something unique that helps you and is easy to explain—three to five steps maximum.  Yeah. I mean, one of the ones that comes to mind for us is what we’ve really called the Adjacent Extension Framework. So, first, do really good work and earn your client's trust in one area. Makes it easy for them to approach you.Share on X For us, it’s historically been accounting. People think, “Great, get my books put together.” But for us, it’s really about creating a relationship and earning the client’s trust.  Then, as step two, listen for the other problems they’re having. What are the adjacent problems they’re asking you to solve? And then for us, what we’ve really done is double down in those other areas by building specialists in those verticals. Once you’ve earned the client’s trust, if you’re doing their accounting and all of a sudden they’re struggling with invoicing or collections, you can say, “Hey, we can also help you with accounts receivable and collection efforts because we see your AR balance increasing on your financial statements.” At that point, they’re already thinking, “Great, I like working with this person.  Let’s give their team a try and help us solve another problem.” So, for us, it’s really been about finding those adjacent problems, building a team that specializes in them, and then connecting the client with the right expert. The last piece that’s really coming to market now is using technology to empower the team. Historically, a lot of our value came from having experts who could handle the edge cases or the gray areas between payroll, accounting, taxes, and sales tax. Now, with technology, you can also build the data infrastructure to highlight what’s happening for the client while helping guide the team as they manage those clients.  Love it. So what I’m hearing is, number one—or maybe even number zero—is do a great job, right?  The trust.  Okay. So that’s maybe another way of saying it: earn the trust. But is doing a good job enough to earn that trust, or is there more to it?  I mean, I think in any service business, you want to be proactive. A lot of bookkeepers, accountants, and even legal professionals are usually waiting for the client to ask a question before providing an answer. I think the goal should be to think ahead for the client and proactively provide guidance. That came naturally for us because we sit in the fractional CFO seat.Share on X  But even if you’re just doing bookkeeping, you can still catch these things for clients and help them out. Or if you’re selling P&C insurance and helping clients with their general liability coverage, you can think about what other types of coverage they may need. So I’d say the more proactive you can be, the better. The other thing is meeting clients where they already are.  For us, a lot of our clients are on Slack, so we connect with them on Slack. We chat with them as if we were full-time employees because we don’t want the experience to feel different. We don’t want you to feel like you’re emailing a generic support inbox and not knowing when someone is going to get back to you. If you only need fractional-level support, it shouldn’t feel like you’re getting fractional value or a fractional level of communication.  I love it. So you actually own the function inside the organization, so it feels like you’re part of the team, or your people are part of their team. So that builds the trust. So, do a great job, or earn the trust, number one. Number two, build the relationship. Number three, listen to other problems that they might have. Number four, connect them to other specialists. And number five, empower the team with technology.  Yeah. That’s a lot of it. I mean, as an advisor, we’ve grown… I mean, 60% of our growth comes from client referrals. So I think you know you’re doing something right if clients are recommending you to their friends and network. And so hopefully, if someone’s listening to this and you’re not getting referrals, you should be thinking about, “How do we either create more trust for our clients to be referring us, or how do we become more top of mind when clients are having these conversations?”  That’s great. So 60% of your growth comes from referrals. What’s the other 40%? How do you drive growth? What drives growth for you? What’s the other way to drive growth besides referrals?  Yeah. I mean, I think it’s also being connected with the ecosystem that you’re in. In our space, there are a lot of technology partners. Think about Xero, which is an accounting software, QuickBooks Online, NetSuite, payroll software like Rippling, Bill.com. They all have accounting partnerships, and the more you can build with them and grow your team alongside them, clients will reach out to them and say, “Hey, do you have someone who can help us set up Bill.com or help us set up Rippling?  We don’t have a payroll team to do our state tax registrations.” So we’ve seen a lot of good momentum as our software partners start sending us clients to help us grow. I think the other area is trying to figure out where you can have partnerships that will do introductions. We’ve been very fortunate in partnering with a number of VCs. Obviously, the VCs have worked with us because we’re on the board, or we had a mutual client. A lot of them will start to build partnership channels, and it’s a great opportunity.  They’ll say, “We just invested in this company, and you should go talk to Noah’s team to help with your accounting or your fractional CFO.” So it’s really about finding those tangential operators or entities that complement whatever you’re doing.  So are these primarily personal relationships that need to scale, or do you have a way to scale this across other people in your organization—this ability to develop partners? Or is it mainly you?  It depends on the role. A lot of our fractional CFOs on the team continue to build relationships. I would say probably 40% of our new clients come through a channel that’s not through me. There’ll be other people on our team who have built relationships with another VC or another software company. I think one of the key things we’ve always focused on is hiring people who are very, I would say “doers” might be the wrong word, but people who can self-manage and be project managers.  If you find the right people who can take a step back and look at the bigger picture, I mean, sometimes people come to Finvisor and they don’t realize that we ourselves are a business. Yes, you’re doing accounting like you were in-house and getting the books closed, but if you do good work and you realize clients are having problems, you have to think, “Hey, how can I help clients more and also help Finvisor create a win-win?” A lot of times, when we’re hiring, we’re trying to find people who have that type of drive to continue building and helping us internally, and not just do one part of the puzzle they’re responsible for. That might not be the most direct answer, but I would say a lot of it is hiring—making sure it's not just me leading the growth, but me building a team that can help lead the growth outside of just me.Share on X  Yeah. So how do you share the context so that your team members can connect the dots as well as you can? What’s your approach to that?  There’s a couple of ways we’ve done it. One way is we use a note-taker that then feeds into our CRM. For all client communication, whether they meet with us on Zoom or Google Meet, the transcripts are put into a centralized hub for us. It also connects to our CRM in terms of what we’re doing for the clients. At any point in time, someone can ask, “Hey, what’s going on with this client?” They can understand, “Great, this is what the payroll team talked to them about this week.  This is what the CFO team talked to them about last month. These are the problems they’ve been bringing up.” So we can capture that information without it having to be provided orally every single time, and without having to rely on a chat or an email to the team. There are some moments when it’s useful to give the team a larger update, but in general, it’s good to figure out a way to capture the essence of what you’re doing for your clients so that the team can then, in an AI chat-specific way, talk through, “Hey, great, what’s going on with this client? What are their needs? What has changed in the last six months? Who’s working on the client?”  I’ll have a VC that we’re talking to say, “Oh, we’re looking to invest in the CPG space and this type of vertical. Do you have any clients?” We’re at a point now where I don’t know every client. I usually have an idea about most clients, but there are definitely clients where I don’t know everything that’s happened in the last six months because I don’t talk to all 200 clients.  But I can go to our central hub to gain that information and understand, “Okay, great, which client is looking to fundraise and might want to be connected to this VC?” It’s a nice way to connect the dots. They’re looking to invest. The client is looking to raise. We also do brown-bag sessions. We’re a distributed team, so I think you have to be a little more intentional about how you educate the team. We’ll have weekly meetings where we walk through new technology, new changes in what we’re offering, new positioning, and continue educating the team in a more structured format.  The other thing we’ve done to help the team understand what’s going on is to make information as accessible as possible, similar to how we communicate with clients. So the team doesn’t have to log in to a pretty outdated CRM to pull information on a client. It’s either available directly in the Slack conversation or in a more modern tool like Notion, where you can easily search and find the information you want. So basically, you’re managing and harvesting your data and using that to feed people information about how they can develop partnerships. Is that what I’m hearing?  Yeah. And I think a lot of it is also figuring out which playbooks and processes are repeatable, documenting them better, and then educating the team around them. For example, with our fractional CFOs, we want to be in the board meeting. If we can be in the board meeting, A, we can help clients answer questions about their finances more easily, and B, it’s good to have visibility into what the board is saying about the business and where they want to go.  Then, obviously, the VCs are going to say, “Oh, great, this is Ian at Finvisor.” If he reaches out to me about a partnership, they’re going to have a better understanding of what we do because they’ve been in the room with us—or they’ve been in a virtual or in-person boardroom with us.  So you’re basically sharing the playbook so that they have a better understanding of what they can refer you for. Correct. Yeah.  So, switching gears here, Noah, what’s one thing that you’re trying to actively figure out in your business right now?  I mean, the question everyone is trying to figure out, at least in my space, is how they’re going to use AI in some fashion. That’s the kind of million-dollar question everyone keeps talking about—AI in accounting, AI in finance. Right now, we’re really structured in how we’re trying to use it and apply it. But the question I have is, what’s the next year going to look like? What’s five years going to look like as this technology gets more legs and more trust behind it? We’re pretty intentional about what we’re building and how we’re using some of the newer technology with AI. But I think there’s a lot that, at least for me, you have to continue to iterate. The world today feels different than it did three months ago. I’d say for most of Finvisor’s history—and this has been 12 years—it hasn’t felt like that, where a year later things might feel marginally different because we’re maybe 20% bigger or whatever might have happened.  Now, I think there’s a lot more excitement and unknown around technology and how it can either make people more efficient or help highlight and surface better issues that clients need to talk through. But I also feel like we’re in a moment where everyone’s trying to throw AI into every technology. So we're also trying to stay true to who we are, which is people first, relationships first—technology powering us, not being the solution.Share on X  So as you’re scaling AI to improve the information that your people have, your CFOs have, that presumably is going to lead to people doing less of the mechanical, repeatable tasks and more of the judgment tasks. So how do you scale judgment as you’re scaling the impact with AI?  On our side, I think it’s A, trying to organize and structure the data coming in. B, trying to create tooling that isn’t unique to one client but is built in a way that can be customized for each customer. A lot of the firms I talk to that are in the Finvisor space just take a blanket approach—turn Claude on for every fractional CFO, let them connect it to QuickBooks, and try to figure out their own playbooks.  That’s not how we’ve ever run the business. We don’t just hire accountants and let them run the accounting and see how the output turns out. We’re more focused on figuring out what is actually useful for review. Right now, I think AI has been most helpful around quality. It can definitely check that things are consistent and make sure edge cases are being caught.  I think we’re going to get to a future state where it’s not only making sure quality is at the 95th percentile of confidence, but also giving visibility into metrics like CAC, LTV, and churn—things that would normally take longer to pull together. Your fractional CFO might currently spend hours reviewing Stripe data or Shopify data to come to a conclusion. AI can cut out maybe 40% of that data-cleanup layer, where it’s like, “Okay, now they have the tools to dig in and understand what the underlying problem is,” instead of spending so much time cleaning up the data and getting everything organized.  So currently, at least my thesis is that it’s going to allow us to manage more clients because some of the day-to-day—I don’t want to call it busy work—but the work you have to do before you get to the exciting parts of the job will become more automated and less manual, like pulling data out of Stripe, Shopify, your CRM, or NetSuite.  So does that mean you’ll have a different type of people, maybe higher-level thinkers? Or do you think you can elevate your current team to that level?  Yeah. I think you’re… Sorry, I know I was originally answering this through the fractional CFO lens. Most of our fractional CFOs are already at the top of that organizational pyramid. For them, it’s really about helping them have cleaner data, better visibility into the actions they need to take, and better insight into what they should be reviewing and discussing with the client.  If I think more broadly about the back-office finance team, I do think a lot of the more generalist staff accountant and AP specialist roles won’t be spending as much time on the day-to-day blocking and tackling. If a client has 1,000 transactions a month flowing through their bank and credit cards, historically that accountant would sit in QuickBooks Online clicking “Okay, okay, okay,” reviewing every transaction and coding it. Eighty percent of those transactions will simply be coded automatically in real time as they come in. That leaves them to focus on the 20% that actually requires human judgment.  For me, the question is, can we continue to empower those people to be more impactful with that 20%? Are they the right people for that 20%? We’ve always tried to hire people who are proactive and broader thinkers, so I think we have the right team to step into that. If we’d built a traditional BPO model with an outsourced accounting team made up of people who were really just coding transactions at a basic level, I’d be more worried because getting those people to step up and handle edge cases is difficult.  But that’s not how we’ve historically built Finvisor. We’ve always tried to find people who are a little more… I’d rather hire an A-plus player than a B-player just because there’s some savings in the cost structure. I’d rather have the right people who can perform 80% of the time when they’re at bat than just hire someone because they’re cheaper.  Yeah.  Wrong baseball analogy there, but yeah.  Yeah, I understand. So you have A-plus people. Maybe the people who are doing more bookkeeping-type services—their jobs may become automated—but your A-players are going to have best-in-class information, and they can serve more clients that way.  Yeah. I still think that if you think about the typical accounting structure—if you’re working in-house and you have a bookkeeper and a controller—it’s still helpful. Depending on the size of the company, if you’re a small company, you probably won’t need that bookkeeper.  The controller can handle the edge cases and close the books. But at a certain scale, you’ll still want that junior resource supporting the controller so the controller can focus on the higher-level, more strategic work. I think people will simply be able to do more with less if they’re the right person. There will be people who, if they aren’t good at staying on their toes and figuring out edge cases, won’t be the right fit.  AI will probably replace some of those roles. But I think there’s a great opportunity for people who can think more strategically. They don’t have to be a CFO. They can just be a really smart bookkeeper who’s good at handling edge cases. They’ll simply be able to manage three times as many clients as they could when they had to code every single transaction.  Okay. If you had a magic wand and you could fix one thing in your business over the next 12 months, what would it be?  One area that we probably haven’t prioritized enough because of growth is SEO, AEO, and our overall sales build-out. Our paid advertising hasn’t been the strongest part of our business because it hasn’t been the top priority. If I had a magic wand, I’d have someone clean up our SEO and AEO visibility because I know clients love us and we do great work, but I don’t think we’re showing up the way I’d like from an SEO and AEO perspective. So that would be it. Yeah.  Yeah. Yeah. Love it. So, who are your ideal customers? Who do you want knocking on your door? Is it venture-backed companies primarily, or do you also work with private company founders? Who are your sweet-spot customers?  A lot of our clients are going to be in that 5-to-50-employee range, where they don’t need a full-time back office, a full-time accountant, a full-time CFO, or a full-time payroll specialist, but they need someone to own those roles. That way, we can put together the right Finvisor team to support them. We’ve intentionally made ourselves pretty modular, so while the largest group of our clients is in the tech VC world, we also have a lot of SMBs—law firms, beauty businesses, and other professional services businesses.  I would say that, if you looked at the Finvisor client base as a whole, you’d probably see a lot of startups. But we’re also starting to see more SMBs and more traditional businesses that don’t have VC funding but still need help with their accounting, bookkeeping, and modernizing their back office. So it’s a bit of both. Most of our clients are going to be in that 10-to-50- or 100-employee range, where they’re complex enough that they care about their financials and want to understand what they spent last month, where they’re going, and how they’re going to get there.  Earlier-stage companies are sometimes just a little too early. If you’re a one- or two-person company with just an idea, there’s a reason people think about their financials on more of a cash basis. They can think about the five clients they’re working with. Their bank balance ties pretty closely to their financials. There’s not a huge difference between the two when you’re a sole proprietor.  But as you start to evolve, that’s where Finvisor can provide more value. For all of our clients, we do accrual accounting, so we’re recognizing your revenue and your costs over the life of the service. As you start to grow and build, that’s really helpful. Obviously, if you’re at day one, it’s less impactful because you’re living more day to day, week to week, and month to month.  Steve Preda: Okay. So if we have those kinds of companies—which we do among our listeners—and they hear about this and want to fix their back office and outsource it to a reliable partner who can help them own those functions and give them good advice, what’s the best entry point? Where should they go, and how can they connect with you personally as well?  Yeah. hello@finvisor.com comes to me and the sales team. There’s probably a 95% chance you’ll talk to me if you reach out because I still love connecting with most new businesses that come through the door. The other area I wanted to call out that could be helpful for businesses is PEOs. PEOs are great, but I think at some point clients need to graduate from the PEO, and Finvisor is uniquely positioned to be both your insurance broker—helping you quote large-group plans—and your payroll and HR team to help you leave the PEO.  For a lot of our clients, once they pass that 100-employee mark, it’s like, “Great, we now qualify for a large-group plan,” which might have better rates than what they’re getting through the PEO. They just don’t have the team or bandwidth to get off the PEO. We’ll come alongside those larger companies and say, “Great, let’s quote a large-group plan for you. We’ll also put together a transition plan to register you in the 20 states where your employees are currently located.  We’ll make sure you get your workers’ compensation and employment practices liability insurance in place so there’s really no difference—apples to apples—from being in the PEO to running your own payroll.” We help with that transition because I’m always surprised to see companies with hundreds of employees still on a PEO, where the savings could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars if they left. They just don’t have the internal team because they’ve always been on a PEO. They’ve never had to do state registrations, so they don’t know how to do them. Because of that, they’re usually not looking for an alternative path to get off that structure. We can at least review it with them and help them out if it’s a good fit. And just to remind our listeners what a PEO is, in case they don’t know.  Oh, sorry. Yeah. A PEO is a Professional Employer Organization. If you’ve heard of companies like TriNet or Justworks, they’re PEOs. In the health insurance space, there are four primary ways you can get health insurance. Most companies start with small-group plans in the early days because they’re state-mandated. For example, in California, if you’re under 100 employees, the rates my company gets would be the same rates Steve’s company gets if we’re both under 100 employees and we’re asking Blue Shield for a quote from the same ZIP code. That’s small-group insurance.  Then there’s level-funded, where carriers quote specifically based on your employee group. There’s large-group, which is somewhat similar but designed for larger organizations. Then there’s the PEO. Let’s say you’re a 10-person company. You don’t have enough employees to qualify for large-group health insurance, which is usually discounted because the risk is spread across hundreds of employees. The PEO says, “We’ll employ your team. Instead of you directly employing 10 people and buying health insurance for only those 10 people, we’ll employ your team and give you rates based on the 10,000 employees we already have.” PEOs are really popular in places like California and New York, where health insurance is very expensive.  But once you get above about 100 employees, you can usually qualify for your own large-group rates, which are similar to what the PEO is getting. The difference is that the PEO is generally marking up those rates because they need to make a margin on the plan. You can often get those rates directly yourself.  Yeah. That makes perfect sense. Okay. So if you’re listening to this and you’re building a venture-backed startup, or you’re the founder of a professional services firm, a law firm, or another small business with 10 to 100 employees, and you don’t yet have the budget—or maybe you simply don’t need—a full-time CFO, insurance advisor, HR leader, and other functional specialists, then reach out to Noah and Finvisor.  Check out what they have to offer and see what services might be a good fit for your business. Thanks, Noah, for coming on the show and sharing your expertise. It’s fascinating to see how this field is evolving, how you’re tapping into technology, and how you’re focusing on the highest-quality CFOs to help your clients. If you enjoyed this conversation, stay tuned.  Follow us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure you don’t miss an episode. Every week, we bring you exciting entrepreneurs and their best management frameworks. Thanks for coming, Noah, and thanks for listening.  Thanks, Steve. Appreciate it. Important Links: Noah's LinkedIn Noah's  website Noah's email: hello@finvisor.com

Hour 1 – Royals loss is historically bad, SEC v B1G, and will Kurt Cousins remain the starter for the Raiders full 2766 Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:04:28 +0000 Egx9jt8HApe0ow5DGeW9JBGgkOVurLBz sports Fescoe & Dusty sports Hour 1 – Royals loss is historically bad, SEC v B1G, and will Kurt Cousins remain the starter for the Raiders Fescoe & Dusty are huge fans of Kansas City sports and the people of Kansas City who make it the great city it is. Start your morning with us from 6-10 as we talk all things Chiefs, Royals, Jayhawks, and more, with plenty of tangents along the way! 2024 © 2021 Audacy, Inc. Sports

The Outer Realm welcomes back special Guest Jonathan Agosto Date: July 30th, 2026 EP: 752 DISCUSSION: Tonight I welcome back Jonathan Agosto. Tonight we will talk about Prayers, Blessings, Curses and Hexes: The Ancient Lore of Spoken Power & Intention. Jonathan will be his newest book “Prayers, Blessings And the Power They Hold” . We will go back in time and delve into the power of words, and the significant roles that intention and belief play. How does this all work with curses, hexes and the evil eye? please join us for this as we explore both "sides of the coin”. Contact for the show - theouterrealmcontact@gmail.com https://linktr.ee/michelledesrochers_ Please Like, Subscribe, Share & Comment ! About Jonathan: Jonathan Agosto is described as the man always dressed in black. He is a mild-mannered, unassuming character who lives a quiet life somewhere in vastness deep in the state of Montana. He has had a lifelong interest in paranormal, and has studied the fields of magic, witchcraft, and the occult for over twenty years. What are Prayers and Blessings? Well, the classical definition of a blessing is simple and straightforward: “God's favor and protection”. This definition comes right from the Oxford English dictionary. Historically, blessings come from ancient, Pre-Christian, practices of consecration such as in early Celtic traditions, Ancient Egyptian, and much more. For the faithful, the definition is much closer to the heart, and blessings are seen as the fulfillment of God's promises, grace, and relational presence, rather than just simple material gain. For the faithful, prayers and blessings are divine favor, often manifesting as peace, joy, and purpose, which are accessed through faith in him rather than human merit. The very idea of blessings themselves is deeply rooted in religious lore and the faith that one is favored above others as willed by a supreme deity is a tale as old as time itself. About The Book: This book will be exploring the profound significance, transformative power, and deep-rooted history of prayers and of blessings, which are fundamentally understood as invocations of divine favor, protection, and grace. Both prayers and blessings have evolved from their humble beginnings from early sacred rites and priestly rituals to common spiritual practices that are spoke of across every culture, faith, and creed as we know them today. It is said that the power of a prayers lies in its ability to grants blessings, which speak life itself into existence, bring about positive change, and serve as an act all unto itself that can strengthen, encourage, and even shield individuals from adversity, acting as a shield in saving one from potential danger and adversity. There are countless examples out there that speak of the power that blessings are said to possess. In this book we will be exploring the history of blessings and their power. As they would say back then, “May this tome of knowledge bless you and enlighten you”. Where to Buy: Dark Moon Press: www.darkmoonpress.net AMAZON: https://a.co/d/00GzCncb If you enjoy the content on the channel, please support us by commenting, subscribing and sharing : Thank you All !!! A formal disclosure: The opinions and information presented or expressed by guests on The Outer Realm Radio and Beyond The Outer Realm are not necessarily those of the TOR, BTOR Host, Sponsors, or the United Public Radio Network and it's producers. Although we value all of our guests and their perspectives, for Legal Purposes, all content must be listed and deemed as "For Entertainment Purposes" We are always be respectful and courteous to all involved. Thank you, we appreciate you all !!! United Public Radio & UFO Paranormal Radio www.uprntalkradio.com

AP's Lisa Dwyer reports on the latest unemployment figures.

The Message of Tu B'Av: Discovering Hashem's Love Welcome to Daily Bitachon . I apologize for not sharing this class prior to Tu B'Av , but its message remains timeless regardless. Our Rabbis teach us that the month of Av is not merely called Av —it is known as Menachem Av . Some communities announce, "Rosh Chodesh Menachem Av" , Sephardim similarly refer to the month of Elul as Elul Rachamim (the month of mercy). Two Halves of One Month The Chatam Sofer offers a profound insight regarding the month of Av. He explains that Menachem Av does not describe the entire month as a single unit, but rather highlights its two distinct halves: The First Half ( Av ): Associated with hardship and judgment. The Second Half ( Menachem ): Beginning on the 15th of Av ( Tu B'Av ), a new period of comfort ( nechama ) begins. Our Sages note that the word AV ( ) can stand for A rur (cursed) and B aruch (blessed): While we typically say on Rosh Hashanah, "May the year and its curses end; may the new year and its blessings begin," in a spiritual sense, this transition actually initiates on Tu B'Av. Just as the sap takes 45 days to rise up the tree—starting on Tu B'Shevat and bursting into new buds by Rosh Chodesh Nisan —so too does the spiritual energy for the High Holidays begin rising on Tu B'Av. The Miracle in the Desert Why is Tu B'Av celebrated as a holiday? Historically, it was the day the generation of the desert stopped dying. For 39 years following the decree of the Spies ( Meraglim ), every Tisha B'Av, those reaching the age of 60 would dig their own graves, lie in them, and approximately of the population would pass away. However, in the final year: On the 9th of Av , the people entered their graves as usual. The next morning, everyone woke up alive . Suspecting they had miscalculated the Hebrew calendar, they returned to their graves each night. On the 15th of Av , seeing the full moon, they realized the calendar was correct and the decree had officially ended. How Did the Sentence End Early? According to Tosafot (and as noted by Rav Wolbe), the people had assumed the 40-year decree began after the sin of the Spies. However, Hashem, in His immense mercy, counted "time served": He included the year they had already spent in the desert prior to the Spies. He linked the sin of the Golden Calf ( Chet HaEigel ) with the sin of the Spies—connecting the beginning and end of the Three Weeks. And based on the Golden calf , that happened a year before the spies the jail sentence began a year earlier The people entered their graves expecting the final wave of death, unaware that Hashem had mercifully shortened their sentence. When they arose alive on Tu B'Av, they realized: Hashem is not out to get us; Hashem is protecting and loving us. Although the miracle occurred on the 9th of Av, it was only on the 15th of Av—when they recognized Hashem's mercy—that it became a true holiday. Misinterpreting Hashem's Love Through History A recurring theme in Jewish history is the tendency to misinterpret Hashem's actions as hostility rather than love: Event Human Misinterpretation The Inner Reality Adam & Chava Believed the serpent's claim that Hashem withheld the fruit out of jealousy. Hashem instructed them for their ultimate benefit and protection. The Spies Believed Hashem brought them to the desert out of hatred ( "Because of Hashem's hatred for us..." ). Hashem brought them out of Egypt to give them the Holy Land. Destruction of the Temple When the enemies saw the Cherubim (angels) embracing during the destruction, the Jews feared Hashem was exposing them to mockery. According to the Parshat Derachim and the Chida ( Nachal Kedumim ), the embrace was Hashem's final parting hug before a long exile. The key to ending the "curses" of the year is changing our perspective: realizing that what seemed like harsh judgment was actually an expression of Hashem's divine care. The Power of the 15th Rebbe Yerucham Levovitz explains that when we bless the new moon, we do not focus on astronomical mechanics; we focus on what the moon symbolizes—the Jewish nation waxing and waning. Major Jewish holidays occur on the 15th of the month ( Pesach, Sukkot, Tu BiShvat, Tu B'Av ) because the full moon represents the moment when the month's spiritual influence ( Mazal ) reaches its peak maturity and strength. Moving Forward to the High Holidays Starting from Tu B'Av, it is time to prepare our hearts for the High Holidays. Key Takeaway: Realize that Hashem is a loving Father who seeks our best interest. By fixing the ancient misconception that Hashem's intentions are negative, we correct our spiritual course—moving from Rosh Hashanah to Sukkot ( Zman Simchatenu ), and ultimately to Shemini Atzeret , where we stand in joyful closeness with God.

Historically, urgent care clinics were places you only went to treat acute injuries, but people are now turning to them for a growing slate of non-emergency medical services. And for operators in the space, that's creating a huge amount of opportunity. Jeremy Morgan is the CEO of American Family Care, the nation's leading provider of urgent care with nearly 400 walk-in clinics across the United States. AFC's team of over 3,500 highly trained healthcare professionals deliver care to more than four million patients annually, driving system-wide sales exceeding a billion dollars.  Jeremy joins us to discuss how changes in American healthcare are impacting AFC's growth prospects, their approach to franchising, and how they're leveraging technology to deliver fast, convenient, and high quality healthcare to the communities they serve.  Highlights:Why Jeremy Joined AFC (2:20)Urgent Care as a Retail Business (4:00)What Makes AFC Different (6:22)Taking Over a Founder's Business (8:26)The Three-Stage Growth Plan (10:48)Building the Leadership Team (12:58)Going All-In on AI (17:36)The Case for Franchising with AFC (20:10)Buying Out the Competition (25:39)Links:Jeremy Morgan LinkedInAFC LinkedInAFC WebsiteICR LinkedInICR TwitterICR Website Feedback:If you have questions about the show, or have a topic in mind you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producer, joe@lowerstreet.co

In this episode, host Zach Urness talks with an Oregon wildfire chief about why the 2026 season has been historically bad and what to expect for the rest of the summer. Urness talks with Kyle Williams, the Oregon Department of Forestry's deputy director of fire operations, about the seemingly endless number of fires burning in central and eastern Oregon, how they started and why they've grown so large. They talk about firefighting tactics and what to expect on the west side of the state the rest of summer. Likely this week, Oregon will burn more acres than have ever been recorded in a modern fire season — and it'll happen before the calendar even hits August.

Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.   In this episode, Justin interviews Colette Cummins, Chief Risk Officer of Inland Fisheries Ireland and a RIMS-CRMP Commissioner, on what it's like to be a CRO in an organization whose mission is protecting a national natural resource. Justin invites Colette to share her career journey, and she tells how she developed in credit risk management, audit, and enterprise risk management, and how she landed in the public sector, protecting the environment while guiding Inland Fisheries Ireland toward building a solid risk framework. Colette speaks of the surprises she found in the public sector, and the impressive risk mindset and commitment she finds at IFI.   Listen for principles of building out risk registers and a risk framework, whether in the private sector or a public sector agency.   Key Takeaways: [:01] About RIMS and RIMScast. [:16] About this episode of RIMScast. Our guest today is Collete Cummins. She is the Chief Risk Officer for Inland Fisheries Ireland and a RIMS-CRMP Commissioner. We're going to have a great dialog. But first… [:42] RIMS-CRMP Workshop. We are delighted to announce that on August 27th and 28th, RIMS President Manny Padilla will be leading the two-day in-person workshop at St. John's University at 101 Astor Place in New York City. A link to the registration is in this episode's show notes. [1:02] RIMS-CRMP Virtual Workshops. RIMS will partner with PARIMA for the RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep on September 1st and 2nd. Registration links are in this episode's show notes. [1:12] On the webinars page, you will see a two-part series hosted by the RIMS Membership Department. The "Classroom to Career" webinar series highlights how RIMS equips students with the knowledge, skills, and connections needed to thrive in risk management careers. [1:28] Participants will gain insights into industry trends, career pathways, and practical tools that help them confidently step into the evolving world of risk management after graduation. These sessions will be hosted on September 1st and 9th. [1:41] These sessions are member exclusives and are complimentary for RIMS members, of course. So, if you are interested in becoming a member, this would be the time. Visit RIMS.org/membership. [1:51] RIMS is back on YouTube. Our handle is @RIMSOfficialChannel. We've got plenty of videos there, including RIMScast, RIMScast Canada video podcasts, and other informative and entertaining content from RIMS. Subscribe to the channel today! [2:08] On with the Show! Our guest today is Colette Cummins. She is the Chief Risk Officer for Inland Fisheries Ireland. The IFI is the dedicated state agency for protecting, managing, and conserving Ireland's inland fisheries and sea angling resources. [2:26] Colette is the agency's first CRO, but she's not new to risk management. We're going to hear about her career journey and why she feels that this position was custom-made for her, combining her love for environmental awareness with her risk management knowledge. [2:42] Colette is also a RIMS-CRMP Commissioner, and on September 24th, you can hear from her directly, along with Elliott Long, another RIMS-CRMP Commissioner, in the informational session, "A Conversation with RIMS-CRMP Commissioners Who Hold the Credential." [2:58] That's a free informational session. Visit RIMS.org/CertificationWeek for more information. A link is in this episode's show notes. But we're here to talk with Colette about her fascinating career and risk philosophies. Let's get to it! [3:13] Interview! Colette Cummins, Welcome to RIMScast! [3:28] Colette was told once that she is excessively optimistic. She's very positive. She took it as a compliment. [4:18] Colette started fresh out of university in credit analysis and credit risk management. She worked in a few financial services organizations. It gave her a taste for risk management at a high level. It was around portfolio analysis and the credit history of customers. [4:51] The role Colette was in wound down, and she was looking to move into a different area in the company, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, in the financial services subsidiary. An opportunity came up to work in internal audit. She decided to try it for a year. She stayed in it for 15 years. [5:32] In the middle of those 15 years, Colette had an interim stint in Operational Risk Management for a year and a half, and she loved it. [5:47] Colette says, in Operational Risk, you're seeing down at a tactical level how to manage and monitor risk. It was very much around risk monitoring. [6:01] Colette explains why she stayed in internal audit for 15 years. Ten years were spent in various internal audit management roles in the financial services subsidiary. It was a tough time for HPE in terms of meeting the new regulatory challenges in Ireland and Europe for financial services. [6:41] Colette was asked to take on the Head of Internal Audit role. She did that for five years. She went into Internal Audit for one year in 2008. In 2015, she worked in Operational Risk. In 2017, she was asked to come back to take over as Head of Internal Audit. [7:11] It was a challenging situation because new EU regulations were coming in for banks and financial services businesses. It was a lot of pressure to meet these. There was a lot of scrutiny from Irish regulators. It was a challenging environment for Internal Audit. [7:53] When Colette moved in as Head of Internal Audit, it was a pivotal role in terms of steering the organization through that regulatory time. It was a great learning experience and very helpful now that she's in a public sector role. [8:09] Colette says, the whole time she was Head of Internal Audit, she was thinking, "How do I get back to Risk? How do I get out of here?" She loved Operational Risk. [8:27] Colette networked heavily within the organization. She got the opportunity to move out of Financial Services up into the global HPE organization as an Enterprise Risk Manager. She got that role through networking. She enjoyed that ERM role and did it for about five years. [9:26] Colette says it was a strategic role. She was working with the heads of each business unit, reviewing their risks. It had a very heavy emphasis on reporting to the audit committee and the board on what was happening in risk management in the business units. [9:58] Colette didn't feel as if she was effecting change or driving new strategies within the organization, but she learned a huge amount about negotiating with senior management and a lot about the fundamentals of risk management. [10:18] For the last year or two of her role, Colette wondered what she was doing there. She had a sense of wanting to stay in risk management but wanting to do something different, maybe something more value-add and less commercially driven. [10:39] Colette says towards the end of 2025, HPE announced it was cutting resources and implementing cost-cutting initiatives. As part of that, her role was made redundant. At first, it was a big upheaval and quite a shock after 22 years with the organization. [11:03] Colette says that upheaval turned into a great opportunity. It was the push she needed to ask herself where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do. It was an opportunity to try something completely different. [11:28] Colette says she didn't know anybody in the public sector. She had no contacts. But in Ireland, you cannot in any way canvass for jobs in the public sector. Everything is heavily regulated with very strict anti-corruption regulations. [11:54] Colette says she had no knowledge of the organization. She had no intention of applying for a role for at least six months. But she started looking at what was out there. She was going to put some time into development and building out her CV and getting some qualifications. [12:33] Colette says she had been thinking she would like to do something in the public sector; something more meaningful and less commercially-driven. She wanted to do something with more autonomy, more impact, and more control over risk at the organisation. [12:54] Colette says, one Wednesday afternoon, she was looking, and she saw this job that had just come up. It's in exactly the right location, it's public sector, and it's IFI, an environmental body. Colette said, "Wow! This is it!" Forgetting her six months off, she had to go for it. [13:19] Colette interviewed for the job when she hadn't yet finished her old role at HPE. She was hugely busy, trying to wrap up her role and interviewing. The interview process for the public sector in Ireland is extremely rigorous and tough. She was successful in the role. [13:43] Colette says she just had a couple of weeks off and then went straight into it in March of 2026. She has been CRO at Inland Fisheries Ireland for four months now. [14:06] Colette says IFI is the state organization that is responsible for protecting the fish stock in Ireland. Ireland is a country with a lot of waterways. IFI is responsible for protecting the fish in 45,000 miles of rivers, 128,000 hectares of lakes, and 3,500 miles of shoreline. [14:43] It's doing everything to protect and restore the fish stock in those areas. Historically, the organization was very much about protection, preventing fishermen from overfishing and from fishing illegally, especially protected species. IFI has a substantial staff who patrol the rivers. [15:17] Now IFI is working on pollution, reacting to any pollution episodes and ensuring that they're investigated and stopped. Colette says that prevention measures sit with a different state body. The Environmental Protection Agency works on the prevention of pollution.  [15:41] Colette says because the IFI has staff on the ground, it will see pollution coming in, react to it, and get in touch with the EPA to say, We've seen something coming into this river at this location. We need your team out here to source and stop it. [16:08] The IFI staff on the ground takes samples of the water and has them ready for when the EPA team comes to look at it. Another huge element of what the IFI does is restoring the habitat and creating the perfect environment for the fish. They research how the stock is developing. [16:35] The IFI research teams go out and do things like electrofishing, where they stun the fish for a few seconds to take a scale from the fish, test it, and work out the genetic trail of the fish and where they've come from. There's a huge amount of information they take from that. [16:58] The IFI works on the rivers, as well. Salmon, in particular, always go back to where they spawned. You need to keep that route open for them. If a barrier, like a dam, has been built, the IFI team works with construction companies to remove those. [17:19] The IFI has a wide series of activities: patrolling, protection, pollution, habitat restoration, and research. Colette is sure risk professionals hearing this are saying, That's a lot of risks! [17:37] Justin points out that the IFI covers thousands of miles. It's not just the particulars of the job but also the volume and area it has to cover. [18:03] Colette says the other element is that fishing or angling is part of Ireland's tourist industry. The IFI promotes fishing, without overfishing, obviously, and supports and partners with the local fishing organizations. [18:28] A Quick Break! Many fantastic RIMS events are coming up in 2026. You can register now for the Second Annual RIMS Texas Regional Conference, which will be held from August 10th through the 12th at the Grand Hyatt on the San Antonio River Walk. [18:44] Visit RIMS.org/Events for registration information. The hotel cutoff date was July 10th. Reservations may still be made after the hotel cutoff date, subject to availability; however, the negotiated group rate is no longer guaranteed, so reserve now. [19:00] The 11th Annual Chicagoland Risk Forum will return to the Old Post Office on Thursday, September 24th, 2026. Visit ChicagolandRiskForum.org for more information. [19:11] The RIMS Western Regional Conference will be held from October 4th through the 7th in Seattle, Washington. The agenda is live, and registration is open. Visit RIMSWesternRegional.com and the link in this episode's show notes for more information. [19:28] Save the dates: October 18th through the 21st. We will be in Quebec City to celebrate the 50th Live RIMS Canada Conference. Booth sales are open, and sponsorship opportunities are still available. Advance registration is open now. [19:44] Visit RIMSCanadaConference.ca for more information. Also, remember to check out RIMS.org/Canada for our spinoff show, RIMScast Canada, hosted by National Conference Committee Chair, Aaron Lukoni. [19:59] The RIMS ERM Conference 2026 will be held on November 19th and 20th in Columbus, Ohio. Registration is now open. [20:08] An announcement seeking nominations for the RIMS Global ERM Award of Distinction will be made public in July. Visit RIMS.org/ERM2026. [20:19] We're already looking to RISKWORLD 2027, which will be held over four days in New Orleans, Louisiana, from April 18th through the 21st! The call for session proposals is now live and will stay active through August 21st. [20:34] RIMS members can exclusively register by September 4th for the best rate. And get first access to the hotel block. Hotel reservations open on October 28th, ahead of public registration. Sitting this out is the real risk! The link to registration is in this episode's show notes. [20:54] Let's Return to Our Interview with Inland Fisheries CRO and RIMS-CRMP Commissioner Colette Cummins! [21:05] Justin comments that fish is a critical food source, so IFI has to make sure that they're clean, healthy, and they keep repopulating. Colette agrees but says that it's less about food and more about environmental protection. [21:23] Colette says some species have been reduced a huge amount in the last number of years because of things like pollution, habitat destruction, etc. It's really about environmental protection, restoring that stock, and bringing it back to where it should be for a natural balance. [21:42] Colette says her CRO role is new at IFI. That's what made it even more exciting for her. She says, when she came in, it was basically a blank sheet. IFI had dealt with risk by using a third party to give them a risk management model and some training. [22:10] Colette says the IFI was trying to work with that in-house, without any risk management expertise. It brought in a bit of a risk mindset, but essentially, Colette had a clean sheet to start with. She came in in March, and now she's building out the risk register. [22:36] Colette's first task was to design the risk framework. Colette loves risk management and has done lots of various elements of it, but she's never had complete autonomy, where she was driving change in the organization. [22:55] By full autonomy, Colette means she owns everything. Anything that happens to do with risk comes to her. [23:01] Up until now, Colette's role has been designing the framework: establishing how the organization is going to manage risk, building that out, getting people on board with that framework. It's split into six departments within the organization. [23:29] Each head of that department, or ELT member, will own their risk register, or their list of risks. Colette is working closely with them to ensure they have all their risks listed within that register and that they fully understand them. [23:48] Colette is looking at their controls and helping them devise new controls, looking at how the risk matches the risk appetite of the organization, and working with the next level of management beneath them to help them develop their risk registers to report up to the ELT. [24:40] Colette says IFI had been trying to recruit a CRO for some time. She wishes she had known! She would have applied last year. She just happened to see it. The existing model wasn't working. There was a real need. [25:00] The audit committee and board were saying they weren't happy. They said they needed to see risk management alive in the organization. Colette had to dive straight in, hit the ground running, and start building it out straightaway. It was exactly the challenge she was looking for. [25:18] Colette says it's so good to have that autonomy and responsibility, but also accountability. She is completely accountable for everything that happens with risk. Colette gets each member of the ELT to develop their risk register and report that up to the audit committee. [25:45] If anybody is doing anything where they want to think about risk, they talk to Colette. It's not complicated. They don't go to somebody else. Everybody knows, if it's got the word "risk," they come to Colette. Colette says the full visibility of everything is great. [26:19] Colette says she's starting with a very simplistic model to build the registers. She says it's drawn more from ISO, but it's a very simplistic model to get the organization started. Colette moved from a private-sector global IT company to the public sector. [26:56] The one thing that is challenging is that things move much slower in government. It moves much slower, and that's probably even more so in Ireland than in Europe and maybe than in the U.S. [27:16] You could come in and see this is the change that is needed, and think you could go ahead and effect that change within a couple of weeks? Oh, no you don't! You need to take everything slowly and get the right approvals and authorizations, etc.  [27:29] Colette says she is starting with a really simplistic model: set out your risks, set out your controls, set out your mitigating actions, and then, we're going to get the organization working on that with that framework. [27:43] Colette hopes to do it within six months, but knowing the public sector, it could be a year. Then start building in other elements to it to make it a more mature and sophisticated framework. [28:19] Every change has to be approved by the Audit and Risk Committee (ARC). If Colette wants to make a small tweak in the existing framework, it goes back to the Audit and Risk Committee, which meets every three months. [28:51] Colette presented to the ARC in June. She presented how she wanted to move forward. There was no question. She knew they were going to approve it. She couldn't just go ahead and put the framework in place. [29:08] It needs to go through the protocols and have the conversation with the ARC and just take it nice and slow to effect any change. That is one challenge that's different for Colette. But otherwise, she can bring all of her experience from different areas and use every bit of it. [29:37] One More Quick Break! RIMS has launched RIMS, The Foundation for Risk ManagementTM. The Foundation is dedicated to shaping the future of the profession. Contribute to strengthen the global risk management community and invest in the future of the industry. [29:57] The Foundation also supports the Spencer Educational Foundation but has a different mission. The Foundation focuses on providing opportunities for those professionals who have already decided to enter risk management and are just getting started. [30:11] You can learn more about the Foundation by visiting RIMS.org/FRM.  While you're there, be sure to check out information about the Susan Meltzer Scholarship Fund, which was established to honor Ms. Meltzer, who was RIMS President in 1999 and 2000. [30:30] Susan Meltzer was a cherished RIMS President and contributed so much to RIMS and the greater risk community. Learn more at RIMS.org/FRM.  [30:39] Let's Return to Our Interview with Colette Cummins!  [30:53] Colette Cummins is speaking with us today from County Kildare, about 30 miles outside Dublin, Ireland. The IFI offices are on the edge of Dublin, the capital of Ireland. Colette says the land is actually greener and more beautiful than the travel brochures could describe. [31:30] Colette says Ireland is full of rich waterways, which keeps her in a job. She lives near Dublin but is originally from the Southwest of Ireland, which is by far the most beautiful. The coastline is stunning. It's where most Irish go on holidays. It's gorgeous. [32:00] Colette says the accent in the Southwest of Ireland is different. Colette's husband from the middle of Ireland requests subtitles when he visits her family in the Southwest. Colette describes the difference between the accents in the South and North of Ireland. [33:05] Colette says the IFI Corporate Risk Register has generic risks around AI, cyber, training, and resources. [33:33] One of their biggest risks is health and safety. Staff are going out and patrolling rivers. They will sometimes come across fishermen who are happily overfishing and not keen to meet a patrolling officer who tells them they shouldn't be taking all this fish and depleting the stocks. [34:08] There is a health and safety risk with the patrolling officer being out on a river on boats. There is a health and safety risk in meeting an acrimonious and adversarial fisherman. [34:28] Because IFI does research, they have staff in labs, using high-tech equipment, with a health and safety risk. They have engineers looking at the rivers and habitats and maybe some constructions in the rivers that need to be removed. They have a health and safety risk. [34:37] These are new risks and things for Colette to get her head around. How do we do this? How do we manage that? And the other side is regulation. There are a lot of different regulations that impact IFI. [35:22] Colette says, In the public sector, your reputation is critically important, because you're the face of the state. Reputation is an impact factor you need to build into every risk. If IFI does something wrong, it could end up in the national media the day after. IFI uses taxpayers' money. [36:15] Colette says another huge category of risk for IFI is procurement, ensuring they are using taxpayers' money in the right way and not misusing it. [36:50] Colette says that prioritizing risks comes back to the goals. In procurement, there is the risk of spending money in a way that's not compliant. There is also the risk that there are too many procurement controls and the business can't move fast enough or do what it needs to do. [37:24] Colette says it comes to the organizational goals. What is the impact on the organizational goals? Which risk is going to have a greater detrimental impact on the organization's mission? One caveat: the health and well-being of the staff override everything. [37:55] Health and safety risk trumps everything. IFI would be completely averse to any risk that will impact the health and safety of the staff. Health and safety trumps every other risk. [38:16] Justin says he and Colette met recently for the RIMS-CRMP series where everyone can see her on September 24th. Justin says Colette is very positive and upbeat and speaks about her role with a lot of enthusiasm and joviality. [38:39] Colette says there are 330 people in IFI. It's not commercially driven, so a lot of people are at IFI because they love the work. For some people Colette works with, it's a vocation. They would nearly do the same job without being paid because they have such passion for it. [39:11] Colette met with the research team on site at the rivers to get a better understanding and just to see the passion they have for the job. Using her risk knowledge to help them do their jobs better and to help them protect themselves from risks was rewarding and enjoyable to Colette. [39:45] Colette says being able to use her experience across the organization is just fantastic. Colette has a lot of different experience, and to bring it all together and use it every day when she is challenged with a new task is fantastic and very rewarding. [40:27] Colette says this is the field staff's very busy time because this is when all the fishing is happening, this is when pollution is more likely to happen, and when the temperatures go up, the fish are under pressure, so you have to try and protect the waters. [40:42] Colette says the research staff was delighted to hear that someone was coming down from the head office to go out and make the time to really understand the organization. They were very anxious to show her everything. There is such pride in the organization. [41:!5] Justin says a lot of the risk professionals listening are in the private sector, and he asks Colette what would most surprise them about risk management in a public environmental organization. [41:40] Colette says a lot of the differences in the public sector are what you would expect: things move slower, and the protocols. [41:49] What surprised Colette the most is what a strong risk mindset they have. There's a good understanding of risk already, even through the layers of management. They can look at what's going on, the processes, and the activities and ask, "What are the risks here?" [42:16] There is also a commitment to risk that Colette was not expecting. She was expecting to meet a research manager who wanted to research and leave risks to Colette. She hasn't had that anywhere. They all ask her to talk with them about their risks. "Am I managing them right?" [42:39] Colette says there is knowledge and commitment, and that has been the biggest surprise for her. It obviously makes her job a lot easier. [42:48] Justin says this is excellent. It has been such a pleasure to meet you these last couple of days. We're going to see you during RIMS Certification week on September 24th. [42:57] Justin says, You will be co-hosting the informational session, "A Conversation with RIMS-CRMP Commissioners Who Hold the Credential." You're such a breath of fresh air. We really appreciate your contributions, and I learned a lot speaking with you today and yesterday. [41:12] Justin says, You have a fascinating job, and I hope that you have a chance to attend a RIMS event, maybe lead a session, and connect with our live audiences, as well. Colette says she would love to at some stage in the future. [43:32] Special thanks again to Colette Cummins of Inland Fisheries Ireland for joining us here on RIMScast. [43:38] You can hear Colette again on September 24th during RIMS Certification Week for the special informational session, "A Conversation with RIMS-CRMP Commissioners Who Hold the Credential." [43:49] That session will be held at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Visit RIMS.org/CertificationWeek. The link is also in this episode's show notes. We've got sessions on the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th of September. We look forward to seeing you there. [44:05] Plug Time! Become a RIMS member and get access to the tools, thought leadership, and network you need to succeed. Visit RIMS.org/membership or email membershipdept@RIMS.org for more information. [44:22] Risk Knowledge is the RIMS searchable content library that provides relevant information for today's risk professionals. Materials include RIMS executive reports, survey findings, contributed articles, industry research, benchmarking data, and more. [44:39] For the best reporting on the profession of risk management, read Risk Management Magazine at RMMagazine.com. It is written and published by the best minds in risk management. [44:52] Justin Smulison is the Business Content Manager at RIMS. Please remember to subscribe to RIMScast on your favorite podcasting app. You can email us at Content@RIMS.org. [43:05] Practice good risk management, stay safe, and thank you again for your continued support!   Links: RIMS Certification Week: Sept. 21‒24 | Complimentary For All RIMS Texas Regional Conference 2026 | Aug. 10‒12 in San Antonio | Register Now! Spencer Educational Foundation's 2026 Funding Their Future Gala | Sept. 17, 2026 RISKWORLD 2027 Registration | RIMS members can lock in 2026 rates now through Sept. 4 | Education Content Submission ChicagoLand Risk Forum | Sept. 24, 2026 RIMS Western Regional Conference — Oct. 4‒7, 2026 | Seattle, WA | Register Today. RIMS Canada Conference — Oct. 18‒21, 2026 | Quebec City | www.rimscanadaconference.ca | Advance Registration Open | Sponsorship Opportunities Available RIMS ERM Conference 2026 | November 19‒20 in Columbus, Ohio | Registration Now Open! | www.rims.org/ERM2026 RIMS, the Foundation for Risk Management Spencer Educational Foundation — Scholarships and Grants | Open Calls and Timelines. RIMS Now RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP) | Insights Video Series Featuring Joe Milan! The Strategic and Enterprise Risk Center RIMS Diversity Equity Inclusion Council RIMS-CRMP Stories RIMScast Canada — Episodes Now Live RISK PAC | RIMS Advocacy RIMScast on YouTube! RIMS Risk Management Magazine | Contribute | Q2 2026 Issue Now Available Sponsor RIMScast — Sales@RIMS.org Fisheriesireland.ie/ Upcoming RIMS-CRMP Virtual Workshops: RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep Workshop — Live In NY — Aug 27‒28! RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep with PARIMA | Sept 1‒2 Full RIMS-CRMP Prep Course Schedule See the full calendar of RIMS Virtual Workshops   Upcoming RIMS Webinars: RIMS.org/Webinars "RIMS Student Series: Classroom to Career Part 1" | Sept 1 "RIMS Student Series: Classroom to Career Part 2" | Sept 9   Related RIMScast Episodes: "Reputation and Defense with Jeff McKissack" "Choosing the Challenge with Johnell Holly" "Supply Chain Integrity and Sustainability with Nicole Sherwin of EcoVadis"   Sponsored RIMScast Episodes: "48 Hours From a Storm: What to Do Before A Hurricane Strikes" | Sponsored by Global Risk Consultants, a TÜV SÜD Company (New!) "AI-Scale, Risk Ready: Engineering Controls for the New Data Center Boom" | Sponsored by Global Risk Consultants, a TÜV SÜD Company "Facing Into Risk: Navigating the New Risk Landscape" (New!) | Sponsored by AXA XL "Secondary Perils, Major Risks: The New Face of Weather-Related Challenge" | Sponsored by AXA XL "The ART of Risk: Rethinking Risk Through Insight, Design, and Innovation" | Sponsored by Alliant "Mastering ERM: Leveraging Internal and External Risk Factors" | Sponsored by Diligent "Cyberrisk: Preparing Beyond 2025" | Sponsored by Alliant "The New Reality of Risk Engineering: From Code Compliance to Resilience" | Sponsored by AXA XL "Change Management: AI's Role in Loss Control and Property Insurance" | Sponsored by Global Risk Consultants, a TÜV SÜD Company "Demystifying Multinational Fronting Insurance Programs" | Sponsored by Zurich "Understanding Third-Party Litigation Funding" | Sponsored by Zurich "What Risk Managers Can Learn From School Shootings" | Sponsored by Merrill Herzog "Simplifying the Challenges of OSHA Recordkeeping" | Sponsored by Medcor "How Insurance Builds Resilience Against an Active Assailant Attack" | Sponsored by Merrill Herzog "Third-Party and Cyber Risk Management Tips" | Sponsored by Alliant   RIMS Publications, Content, and Links: RIMS Membership — Whether you are a new member or need to transition, be a part of the global risk management community! RIMS Virtual Workshops On-Demand Webinars RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP) RISK PAC | RIMS Advocacy RIMS Strategic & Enterprise Risk Center RIMS-CRMP Stories — Featuring RIMS President Manny Padilla!   RIMS Publications, Content, and Links: RIMS Membership — Whether you are a new member or need to transition, be a part of the global risk management community! RIMS Virtual Workshops On-Demand Webinars RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP) RISK PAC | RIMS Advocacy RIMS Strategic & Enterprise Risk Center RIMS-CRMP Stories — Featuring RIMS President Manny Padilla!   RIMS Events, Education, and Services: RIMS Risk Maturity Model®   Sponsor RIMScast: Contact sales@rims.org or pd@rims.org for more information.   Want to Learn More? Keep up with the podcast on RIMS.org, and listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.   Have a question or suggestion? Email: Content@rims.org.   Join the Conversation! Follow @RIMSorg on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.   About our guest: Colette Cummins, Chief Risk Officer, Inland Fisheries Ireland RIMS-CRMP Commissioner   Production and engineering provided by Podfly.

Every sports city has its legends—the athletes, coaches, and trailblazers whose accomplishments define generations of fans. But if you could honor only four people from each city, who would make the cut? In this episode of the Historically Speaking Sports Podcast, where we give you the best of sports from back in the day, Dana Auguster and Charles Combs will reveal who they think should be the sports Mount Rushmore of certain cities. Inspired by the iconic Mount Rushmore, they building the ultimate Sports Mount Rushmore for some of America's greatest sports cities. they will celebrate the icons whose championships, records, leadership, and cultural impact have left an unforgettable mark on their hometowns.Co host Dana Auguster unveils his Mount Rushmore selections for Washington, D.C., Oakland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston, and Detroit, while co host Charles Combs makes the case for Atlanta, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boston, and Miami.Will our choices match yours? Which legends are absolute locks, and which cities will spark the biggest debates? There are bound to be a few surprises—and maybe even a few controversial omissions.If you would like to contact the show please email us at Historically.Speaking.Sports@gmail .com

Election Years Often Bring Volatility, Not Lasting Market Changes Investor questions surrounding the upcoming midterm election continue to increase, particularly regarding how election results could impact financial markets. Historically, heightened market volatility leading into an election is completely normal. Volatility has typically increased as Election Day approaches, with October often proving to be the most volatile month of the election cycle. Once election uncertainty passes, however, market volatility has generally declined. More importantly, history shows that investors should focus less on election outcomes and more on what happens afterward. Since 1950, every 12-month period following a midterm election has produced a positive return for the S&P 500, with an average gain of approximately 16.6%. Even the weakest post-election year generated a positive return. Political control has also shown surprisingly little impact on long-term market performance. Looking back to 1933, the S&P 500 has produced double-digit average annual returns regardless of which political party controlled Washington. While election outcomes certainly influence policy discussions, long-term market returns have been driven primarily by corporate earnings rather than politics. For long-term investors, maintaining focus on business fundamentals remains far more important than attempting to predict election results. Tariffs, Consumer Spending, and Interest Rates Remain Key Economic Drivers Trade policy continues to evolve following the Supreme Court’s ruling against tariffs implemented under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). In response, the administration implemented a temporary 10% universal tariff through Section 122, which expired after 150 days. Going forward, tariffs can now be implemented under Section 301, allowing for more permanent and country-specific tariff rates. While individual tariff rates may vary by trading partner, the overall economic impact compared to the previous structure remains relatively modest. Investors should expect continued headlines surrounding tariffs, but these developments are largely part of an anticipated policy transition rather than a significant shift in trade strategy. Beyond trade policy, consumer health remains one of the most important indicators for the broader economy. One metric receiving close attention combines average mortgage rates with average gasoline prices. Historically, when mortgage rates exceed 6% and gasoline prices rise above $4 per gallon, the combined burden begins placing meaningful financial pressure on consumers. Sustained periods above this threshold have often coincided with mid-cycle economic slowdowns or, in some cases, recessions. Despite these headwinds, the U.S. consumer has remained remarkably resilient. However, prolonged pressure from elevated borrowing costs and energy prices could eventually begin to weaken consumer spending, making this an important trend to monitor. Interest rate expectations also continue to shift. Current market expectations suggest the Federal Reserve is unlikely to cut rates in the near term, with some investors now anticipating the possibility of additional rate hikes later this year. As leadership at the Federal Reserve evolves, markets will closely watch how policymakers respond to inflation, consumer strength, and broader economic conditions. Any unexpected shift toward higher interest rates would represent a meaningful change from the expectations many investors held entering the year and could influence both market sentiment and economic growth. Greg Powell, CIMA® President and CEO Wealth Consultant Email Greg Powell here Bobby Norman, CFP®, AIF®, CEPA® Managing Director Wealth Consultant Email Bobby Norman here Trey Booth, CFA®, AIF® Chief Investment Officer Wealth Consultant Email Trey Booth here Ty Miller, AIF® Vice President Wealth Consultant Email Ty Miller here Fi Plan Partners is an independent investment firm in Birmingham, AL, with a team of professionals serving clients across the nation through financial planning, wealth management and business consulting. The team at Fi Plan Partners creates strategies in the best interest of their clients using fee based investing. The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. All performance referenced is historical and is no guarantee of future results. All indices are unmanaged and may not be invested into directly. Economic forecasts set forth in this presentation may not develop as predicted. No strategy can ensure success or protect against a loss. Stock investing involves risk including potential loss of principal. Securities and advisory services offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC and a registered investment advisor.The post Volatility and Votes first appeared on Fi Plan Partners.

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump insists Iran war is popular, tech meltdown after AI hack, debate on old people power in US. Professor Marandi: https://x.com/s_m_marandi?s=20 Garrison Lovely: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1682196305? ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_BSQ72NWD042H06CYBAA0&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_BSQ72NWD042H06CYBAA0&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_BSQ72NWD042H06CYBAA0&bestFormat=true Samuel Moyn: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0374607648?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.com Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Historically, America was always one of the friendliest countries towards Jews compared to many countries in Europe, says Batya Ungar-Sargon.But in recent years, there's a major shift on the left with anti-Semitism on the rise, she says. In this episode, she breaks down the ideological shifts reshaping American politics and explains why she rejects the modern “victimhood hierarchy.”Ungar-Sargon is the author of "The Jews and the Left" and host of “Batya!” on NewsNation argues.Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

‘Who wants a girl with a personality?' Historically, not the royals.Queen Caroline of Brunswick became Queen Consort of the United Kingdom in 1820, when her husband became King George IV. She was incredibly popular with the public, but unfortunately not so much with her husband, who had hated her from the start (the feeling was mutual).Today, Kate is joined by Ann Foster to tease apart all of the wild parties, pranks, adultery, accusations of adultery and actual mob violence involved in the life of this amazing woman.Ann is the author of 'Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown' and host of the podcast 'Vulgar History'.Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click here to place your vote! Thank you! https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/votingThis episode was edited by Tim Arstall. The producer was Sophie Gee. The senior producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast.Voting is now open for the Listener's Choice Award at this year's Podcast Awards. Click here to place your vote! Thank you! https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/voting Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dave Hodges returns to the program for another lively discussion with Sarah as they tackle the rapidly changing geopolitical landscape. Drawing from their sources, interviews, and ongoing research, they discuss the larger strategies they believe are operating behind the headlines and why events that appear disconnected may in fact be part of a much broader realignment. As always, the conversation goes beyond surface-level narratives to examine incentives, power structures, and the interests shaping global events.The discussion then shifts to artificial intelligence and the immediate real-world impacts already unfolding as data centers expand and AI systems become embedded throughout society. While much attention is focused on job displacement, Sarah argues that the deeper concern may be the loss of creativity, curiosity, and independent discovery that can occur when AI systems are increasingly driven by "authoritative" consensus. Historically, innovation has emerged in the spaces where consensus does not yet exist and where new information challenges established thinking. Entrepreneurs understand this instinctively because opportunities rarely exist where everyone already agrees. If entire generations are trained to remain inside predetermined boundaries of consensus, society risks losing the very process that drives progress and advancement.See more from Dave at theCommonSenseShow.com

Netflix Is Struggling to Stay on Top…. and the Stock Reflects It For years, Netflix has been the dominant force in streaming, consistently taking market share from its competitors. However, recent data suggests the competition is beginning to chip away at that lead.   Netflix reported earnings last week, and the results showed a company that is executing well. Profits continue to grow, customer cancellations remain among the lowest in the industry, and the company is still producing blockbuster franchises like Bridgerton and Stranger Things that attract millions of viewers.   The concern in the report wasn't profitability, it was engagement. Viewer engagement measures how much time subscribers spend watching content and how often they complete a movie or series. The more engaged customers are, the less likely they are to cancel their subscription in favor of another streaming service. That's why this metric is so important.   Netflix still accounted for 7.8% of total TV viewing in April, making it the largest subscription streaming platform. However, that was its lowest share since May 2025, suggesting competitors are gradually gaining ground.   The stock has reflected those concerns, declining roughly 40% over the past year despite continued earnings growth. I've always liked what Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings had to say as he frequently emphasized the importance of staying focused and keeping the business simple. That's a philosophy that has served our investment firm well over the years.   Now, with increasing competition from Disney, HBO Max, YouTube, and others, Netflix is reportedly exploring additional subscription offerings similar to what Amazon and Apple provide. Personally, I think that would be a mistake.   At this year's Emmy Awards, Netflix earned 111 nominations. Instead of expanding into new subscription services, why not invest even more heavily in creating award-winning shows and movies? If they produced enough quality content to earn 120 or even 130 Emmy nominations next year, subscriber engagement would likely take care of itself.   Sometimes the best strategy isn't to do more, it's to do one thing exceptionally well. What do you think? Have you canceled or considered canceling your Netflix subscription? Or do you still believe Netflix offers the best streaming service?   U.S. oil supplies are falling to concerning levels U.S. oil inventories have fallen to levels that should be a concern. The current U.S. oil stockpile is just under 410 million barrels. On a seasonal basis, we have not seen inventories this low since 2018. The seasonal comparison is important because summer is one of the highest-consumption periods of the year.   The U.S. consumes about 20.6 million barrels of oil per day, produces approximately 13.9 million barrels per day, and relies on imports for roughly 7 million barrels per day. At the same time, the United States exports about 4 million barrels of oil per day, likely because companies can receive higher prices for that oil in international markets. If we somehow stopped producing and importing oil entirely, the current commercial stockpile would last roughly 20 days.   The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which has been reduced to approximately 317 million barrels, is also at its lowest level since 1983. At current consumption rates, that reserve would represent roughly 15 days of consumption.   Replenishing U.S. oil inventories to higher levels could take many months or even years. Now with WTI oil around $90 a barrel that higher price could actually be a good thing.   You may be wondering why I would say that, especially since higher oil prices often mean higher gas prices at the pump, but higher gas prices may encourage consumers and businesses to reduce their energy consumption. A lower consumption rate could help slow the decline in inventories and give the U.S. a chance to rebuild its oil supplies.   Over the last six months, have you found yourself reducing your energy usage? And do you plan to reduce your consumption going forward?   Banks Had a Great Quarter, Is It Time to Invest? Last week, the banks reported financial results that topped estimates for both earnings and revenue. They also showed improved efficiency as expenses declined as a percentage of revenue. After such a strong quarter, you might think the coast is clear and it's time to invest in the banking sector.   For the cautious investor, however, it's important to look at the other side of the coin. I'm not expecting the banks to fall dramatically but returns going forward could be more muted because of several factors.   First, there is net interest margin, which measures the difference between what a bank earns on its assets and what it pays depositors and debt holders to borrow money. Banks now have very large balance sheets, so even if net interest margins decline, the dollar amount of profits can remain substantial. However, further pressure on margins could still become a headwind for future earnings growth.   There are also other risks for conservative investors to consider. The ongoing situation with Iran could create additional uncertainty. The AI boom could experience a rough patch, and while the economy and labor markets appear strong right now, investors cannot ignore the possibility of an economic slowdown.   Rising interest rates could also prove difficult for banks if rates move significantly higher from current levels, potentially putting pressure on their profit margins. The good news is that bank valuations are not excessively high, which could help limit the downside risk in the event of a market pullback.   To be clear, we are not anticipating a major decline in the banks we hold in our portfolio. However, investors should make sure the banks they own have very strong balance sheets. Strong capital positions and manageable debt can help reduce downside risk if the economic environment becomes more challenging. A strong quarter is certainly a positive sign for the banks, but investors should remember that great earnings today do not always guarantee great returns tomorrow. Valuation, balance-sheet strength, and the economic environment will all play an important role in determining future returns.   Are new homes actually a better deal than existing homes? There is an interesting trend developing in the housing market: the median price of a newly built home is now lower than the median price of an existing home. Historically there has been about a 20% premium for new homes.   At first, that sounds surprising. New homes are typically more expensive, so how can they now be cheaper? One major reason is that the type of new homes being built and sold has changed. Builders are increasingly focusing on smaller homes, townhomes, and more affordable developments. Townhouses now account for about one in five new single-family homes, which is the highest share since the National Association of Home Builders began tracking the data in 1985. In many cases developers are focusing on attainable homes for the middle-class which means the homes are roughly 1,200 to 2,000 square feet on smaller lots. As a result, the median price of a new home can look lower than the median price of an existing home, even though that doesn't necessarily always mean buyers are getting more house for their money.   In other words, the comparison isn't always apples to apples. A new townhome or smaller home may have a lower price than an older, larger single-family home. That can make new construction appear to be a better deal, but buyers need to carefully consider what they are actually comparing.   There are some real advantages to buying new. Builders are offering incentives such as mortgage-rate buydowns and assistance with closing costs. These lower rates make the monthly payment lower and more achievable than a comparable existing home. New homes typically require less maintenance, come with modern finishes and new appliances, are more energy efficient, and often come with warranties.   But there are risks and a big one many people may not consider is lower resale value. Many of these new home developments only provide a handful of floorplans and they are built on a smaller parcel of land, which leads to less distinctive homes. If you go to sell your home within a few years, you may also be competing against the homebuilder if new homes are still being built in the community.   The bottom line: new homes may offer some of the best deals in the housing market right now, but buyers need to look beyond the headline numbers. Compare the size, location, price per square foot, HOA fees, upgrades, and the total monthly cost. A new home may be a better deal than an existing home, but make sure you understand exactly what you are getting for your money.   Stock Trading Is Off the Charts! There is a frenzy happening in the stock market right now. With individuals buying and selling stocks, along with institutional investors constantly trading, Wall Street is generating enormous trading fees. But one has to ask the question: Does all of this activity make sense?   U.S. average daily trading volume in equities and options hit a record in the second quarter, with 73 million options contracts and 20 billion shares traded. Think about that number for a minute: 20 billion shares of stock changing hands over just three months. Let that sink in.   We have not seen this much activity in individual stocks since the end of the dot-com bubble, and we all know how that turned out.   The good news is that, with this frenzy of stock trading, more people are beginning to seek professional help managing their portfolios. The bad news is that many brokers are really just salespeople who may not have a strong investment philosophy or truly understand what they are doing. They will simply ride the wave until the crash comes, just as happened at the end of the tech bust.   Back then, even a year after the market had collapsed, some brokers were still telling their clients to stay invested because the market would eventually come back. I remember an old saying I learned when I first entered the industry: “The broker knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”   It took the Nasdaq more than 15 years to get back to breakeven after the dot-com bubble burst when it fell close to 80% from top to bottom. That is why it is so important, when seeking financial advice, to understand the investment philosophy of the broker or investment adviser you are working with. Does their philosophy make sense to you? Does it align with your goals? And, most importantly, does it make sense for your portfolio?   When markets are rising and everyone is making money, almost any strategy can look brilliant. The real test is what happens when the frenzy ends.   If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is! A recent story in Barron's highlights a warning that applies to everyone, not just professional athletes.   Several current and former professional athletes reportedly invested in an online business opportunity that sounded too good to be true. Three former NFL players were interviewed by Barron's and collectively they said they lost more than $1 million. The pitch was simple: invest at least $50,000 in an online store and they'll handle everything from social-media marketing to manufacturing store inventory. Investors were told they would get their original investment back within six months, and then receive 80% of the profits.   Sounds like a great deal, right? Unfortunately, according to the investigation, it appears the sales weren't real. The stores were built using Shopify and appeared to be generating significant revenue. But investigators reportedly found questionable orders, including one $5,000 order for 100 desktop humidifiers and 120 USB-powered cup warmers. The person at the shipping address said they never placed the order and “Who needs 100 humidifiers and 120 cup warmers?” There were also other red flags including one e-commerce site, Dailyprodtrend, doesn't appear in Google search results and the web address is just a random string of numbers and letters.   The scheme is run by a 24-year-old entrepreneur named Mohamed Coulibaly and to gain credibility he used celebrity connections citing the names of about two dozen current and former pro athletes and other public figures as clients in a pitch deck. He also has created an image of wealth and success with one athlete saying he saw what appeared to be $25 million in a business account that Coulibaly showed him on a cellphone screen. It's important to remember that no matter how successful someone appears or how many famous people they know you still need to do your own due diligence.   A big problem is the websites were just the beginning of what appears to be a longer con. Once investors had their Shopify login credentials, they were given the impression the business was healthy due to these “fake” orders and then were presented with an even bigger bet that involved the Dubai investment firm Middle East Venture Partners. Unfortunately, this appears to have led to more red flags and still no return on investment.   Before investing, you should independently verify the revenue, customers, expenses, bank statements, contracts, and the actual business itself. Don't simply rely on an online dashboard or someone else's claims about how much money is being made.   The bottom line: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. And the more exciting and guaranteed the opportunity sounds, the more skeptical you should become.   Financial Planning: Conservation Easements: Valuable Planning Tool or Tax Trap? Conservation easements are a tax planning strategy that allows a landowner to permanently donate certain development rights to a qualified conservation organization in exchange for a charitable income tax deduction equal to the reduction in the property's value. When used as Congress intended, they can provide meaningful tax benefits while preserving land for future generations. For example, a family that owns a 1,000-acre ranch valued at $10 million may have no intention of developing the property and want to ensure it remains open space permanently. By donating a conservation easement that limits future development, the property value may decline to $6 million, creating a $4 million charitable deduction while allowing the family to continue owning and using the land. This type of transaction aligns with the purpose of the law because the conservation benefit is the primary goal and the tax deduction is an incentive. However, taxpayers should be cautious of strategies that appear too good to be true. In recent years, the IRS has aggressively challenged syndicated conservation easement transactions that were marketed primarily as tax shelters. In these arrangements, investors often contributed a relatively small amount of capital to a partnership that acquired land, and promoters claimed the donation of a conservation easement created deductions several times larger than the investors' original contribution. For example, an investor might contribute $250,000 and be promised a $1 million charitable deduction based on an aggressive property valuation. Many of these transactions relied on inflated appraisals and lacked a genuine conservation purpose, resulting in significant IRS scrutiny, disallowed deductions, penalties, and litigation. While conservation easements can be used in specific situations, they should be approached with caution and used only when there is a legitimate conservation objective. As with many tax strategies, a benefit that appears disproportionately large compared to the underlying economic activity is often a warning sign that additional due diligence is needed. Are Porsche Cars Losing Their Excitement? Porsche cars have long been known for their high-end, exciting sports cars. But lately, the company has been losing sales compared with last year.   Porsche faces plenty of competition, but its global deliveries were down 16% during the first six months of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. Last year, the company benefited from strong demand for the electric Macan, while it also ended production of the gasoline-powered 718.   The company was also hurt by the loss of U.S. tax incentives for electric vehicles, which contributed to the decline in sales. Porsche sold 37,712 vehicles in North America, a 13% decline from last year. China, which accounts for roughly 10% of Porsche's sales, saw an even larger drop, with sales falling 32% to 14,501 vehicles.   The price of a Porsche starts at around $65,000, but the average transaction price is closer to $125,000. And if you know anything about these cars, you also know that the maintenance and upkeep can put significant pressure on your wallet. You would think that if you're spending $125,000 on a car, you shouldn't have to spend a fortune maintaining it. But that can be part of the trade-off when owning a high-performance luxury vehicle.   So, are Porsche cars losing some of their excitement? Would you be willing to spend $125,000 on a new Porsche, or would you rather purchase a less expensive American car?   Time to Say Goodbye to EV Car Maker Polestar? I would occasionally see Polestar vehicles on the road, and I believe the company even has a dealership at UTC Mall. However, I didn't know much about the company and was surprised to learn just how complicated its ownership structure is.   Polestar is closely tied to Volvo, which is 79% owned by the Chinese company Zhejiang Geely Holding Group. The automotive world has become incredibly complicated over the years. I always thought of Volvo as a Swedish company, but that is no longer technically the case.   The ownership change began in March 1999, when Ford Motor Company paid $6.5 billion to acquire Volvo. However, Ford later sold 79% of Volvo to Geely in August 2010 for approximately $1.8 billion. The remaining 21% is publicly owned through stock ownership. In other words, Ford appears to have taken a significant loss on its investment.   Now, Polestar is facing serious challenges in the United States. The U.S. government is concerned about the company's connection to China and the possibility that data collected by the vehicles could be accessed by the Chinese government. As a result, new Polestar vehicles are no longer expected to be sold in the U.S.   What is strange, however, is that Volvo vehicles are still being sold in the United States, even though Volvo is also majority-owned by Geely. The situation shows just how complicated the relationship between the U.S. auto market and Chinese ownership has become.   There are currently reports of fire-sale discounts on Polestar vehicles, with some discounts reportedly reaching as much as $25,000 just to move the cars. These vehicles originally sold for roughly $55,000 to $75,000 when new.   I'm not sure who would want to purchase one at this point. The biggest concern may not even be the vehicle itself, but what happens to service and support for existing owners. It is possible that Volvo will continue servicing Polestar vehicles, but I would be skeptical about whether maintaining a separate service infrastructure for the brand will be worth the company's time.   After all, relations between the United States and China are currently far from ideal. For Polestar owners, that could create some serious questions about the future of their vehicles.   The New Tobacco Companies The three remaining major players in the tobacco industry are Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, and Altria Group. It should come as no surprise that the number of cigarettes sold in North America has dropped by about 33% since 2020, while the number of tobacco smokers continues to decline rapidly.   But don't be fooled: Tobacco companies have developed smoke-free products that are gaining popularity, but that does not mean they are healthy. The two primary alternatives tobacco companies are now selling are vaping products and something called an oral nicotine pouch.   It is easy to see when someone is vaping because of the large clouds of vapor produced. Nicotine pouches, however, are much less noticeable. They are placed between the front of your teeth and your lip, similar to chewing tobacco. The difference is that you don't need to spit out saliva every few minutes because the nicotine is slowly released into your system.   Currently, in North America, about 7% of the population vapes, up from 3.7% in 2020. Nicotine pouches are also growing rapidly, although you can't see who is using them. In 2024, approximately 23 billion nicotine pouches were sold worldwide, a 50% increase from 2023.   Make no mistake: Both of these products contain nicotine, which is highly addictive and keeps people coming back for more. Some may believe that nicotine pouches are simply a way to move away from cigarettes, but that isn't necessarily the case. The pouch itself can become addictive as well.   Tobacco stocks have performed well, with some nearly doubling over the last few years. More institutional investors who previously dumped these stocks for ethical reasons are now returning because of the growth of smoke-free products.   It all sounds like smoke and mirrors to me. There are simply too many issues surrounding nicotine and the addictive nature of these smokeless products for me to feel comfortable investing in the tobacco industry.   Companies Discussed: Fiserv, Inc. (Ticker: FISV)

CardioNerds (Drs. Apoorva Gangavelli, Jenna Skowronski, and Hannah Every) discuss the continuum of prevention and heart failure with Drs. Anu Lala and Martha Gulati. Grounded in a clinical case of a 55-year-old woman with uncontrolled hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and obesity who is on the trajectory toward heart failure, this episode unpacks a paradigm-shifting framework from a joint HFSA/ASPC Scientific Statement. The discussion explores how prevention should not be siloed from heart failure management but rather integrated across a patient’s lifespan—from primary prevention in at-risk individuals, to secondary prevention in those with established heart failure, to tertiary prevention in patients with advanced therapies such as LVADs and heart transplantation. The experts highlight the importance of aggressive risk factor management, biomarker-guided screening, the AHA’s Life’s Essential 8, and the need for multidisciplinary collaboration and systems-level change to shift heart failure care from reactive to proactive. Audio editing for this episode was performed by CardioNerds Intern, Dr. Julia Marques Fernandes. Enjoy this Circulation 2022 Paths to Discovery article to learn about the CardioNerds story, mission, and values. US Cardiology Review is now the official journal of CardioNerds! Submit your manuscript here. CardioNerds Prevention PageCardioNerds Episode PageCardioNerds AcademyCardionerds Healy Honor Roll CardioNerds Journal ClubSubscribe to The Heartbeat Newsletter!Check out CardioNerds SWAG!Become a CardioNerds Patron! Pearls Systemic inflammatory diseases are associated with an elevated CVD risk that has significant implications for early detection, risk Heart failure prevention is a continuum, not a checkpoint. Prevention applies at every stage—from at-risk (Stage A) through advanced/post-transplant care—and every clinical encounter is an opportunity to intervene. The AHA’s Life’s Essential 8 (diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, sleep, BMI, blood lipids, blood glucose, blood pressure) forms the foundation at every stage. Hypertension carries the highest population-attributable risk for heart failure of any modifiable risk factor. In the Framingham Heart Study, 91% of patients with newly diagnosed HF had pre-existing hypertension. The SPRINT trial demonstrated a 38% reduction in HF incidence with intensive blood pressure targets (30 ng/L or NT-proBNP >125 ng/L) identify individuals at heightened risk for progression to symptomatic HF. The ACC/AHA/HFSA guidelines give a Class IIa recommendation for natriuretic peptide screening in at-risk patients. Urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR) is an underutilized screening tool that provides additional insight into CKM risk. The heart failure label does not close the prevention window—it accentuates it. Secondary prevention through GDMT optimization (quadruple therapy in HFrEF) and continued risk factor management remains critical. Tertiary prevention extends to post-LVAD and post-transplant patients, where hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and CKD management remain essential to long-term outcomes. Show notes For a comprehensive review, please review the full HFSA/ASPC Joint Scientific Statement: Lala A, Beavers C, Blumer V, et al. The Continuum of Prevention and Heart Failure in Cardiovascular Medicine. J Card Fail. 2026;32:75-105. doi:10.1016/j.cardfail.2025.06.013 1. What is the “continuum of prevention” framework, and how does it differ from traditional approaches to heart failure prevention? Historically, prevention and heart failure management have been treated as separate disciplines—primary prevention handled by preventive cardiologists and treatment managed by heart failure specialists. This joint HFSA/ASPC Scientific Statement reframes prevention as a dynamic, continuous process that spans a patient’s entire lifespan, regardless of HF stage or ejection fraction. The framework maps onto the ACC/AHA HF staging system: Primary prevention targets Stage A (“at risk”) and Stage B (“pre-HF”) patients to reduce the burden of incident HF. Secondary prevention targets Stage C (symptomatic) and Stage D (advanced) patients to reduce the impact of established HF through GDMT optimization and ongoing risk factor management. Tertiary prevention encompasses risk factor management in patients with LVADs or heart transplants—populations where hypertension, diabetes, and obesity still drive outcomes. The Central Figure of the statement illustrates that Life’s Essential 8 (blood pressure and lipid control, diabetes management, exercise, sleep, smoking cessation, weight management, and diet/nutrition counseling) forms the foundation at every stage, with pharmacologic and device-based therapies layered on top as disease progresses (Figure) 2. How do traditional risk factors drive heart failure, and what should clinicians prioritize? Hypertension carries the greatest population-attributable risk for HF. In the Framingham Heart Study (N=5,143), HTN was associated with a 2- to 3-fold increased risk of HF, with a population-attributable risk of 39% in men and 59% in women. The SPRINT trial showed a 38% reduction in HF incidence and 25% reduction in the primary composite outcome with intensive BP targets (30 ng/L or NT-proBNP >125 ng/L) are associated with heightened risk for progression to symptomatic HF. In the ARIC study, incorporating NT-proBNP reclassified 20% of older adults without HF into Stage B. Factors that affect interpretation include age, sex, obesity (lower values), and CKD (higher values). High-sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTn): Concentrations above the 99th percentile are now included in the definition of Stage B HF. Troponin testing may complement natriuretic peptides, particularly when BNP/NT-proBNP values are ambiguous. Risk scores: The PCP-HF equation predicts 10-year HF risk using traditional risk factors plus QRS duration. The AHA PREVENT score incorporates HF risk calculation and includes markers of kidney function (albuminuria, eGFR), though it may underestimate risk in men and Black adults. The CKM syndrome staging framework (Stages 0–4) provides a holistic approach to assessing systemic cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic risk. 4. What are the key nontraditional risk factors and cross-cutting themes in heart failure prevention? Genetics: Pathogenic cardiomyopathy variants exist in ~1 in 200 individuals in the general population. The HFSA and ACMG recommend cascade testing to identify at-risk family members. Polygenic risk scores for dilated cardiomyopathy show a 3.8-fold risk for DCM in the top 10th percentile compared with the median. Sex-specific considerations: Women have 2.8 times the odds of developing HFpEF, while men have similarly increased odds of HFrEF. A complete obstetric/gynecologic history is essential—preeclampsia is associated with a 4-fold increased risk of HF. Peripartum cardiomyopathy requires intentional screening in high-risk populations. Cardiotoxic exposures: Clinicians should be aware of medications that cause direct myocardial toxicity (e.g., anthracyclines, trastuzumab, tyrosine kinase inhibitors). A team-based approach with pharmacists can help optimize medication selection and risk factor modification. Social determinants of health: Environmental exposures (air pollution, arsenic, lead, cadmium), food insecurity, financial instability, and limited healthcare access contribute to HF risk and progression. Equity-focused, risk-based prevention strategies are needed. Psychological health: Depression is common in HF and independently associated with worse outcomes. Screening with brief questionnaires (e.g., PHQ-2) is recommended. Meditation, spirituality, and holistic wellness approaches remain underutilized. 5. What systems-level and policy changes are needed to move the needle on heart failure prevention? Multidisciplinary HF prevention clinics that bring together preventive cardiologists, HF specialists, endocrinologists, nephrologists, dietitians, pharmacists, exercise physiologists, and genetic counselors are advocated by the statement. EHR-embedded risk stratification could proactively flag patients on a trajectory toward HF—analogous to sepsis alerts or fall risk flags—enabling earlier intervention, particularly for patients who may not reach a cardiologist. Cardiac rehabilitation remains underutilized, particularly in HFrEF (Class 2b recommendation) and HFpEF (not yet covered by Medicare). The HF-ACTION trial showed quality-of-life benefits, and the REHAB-HF trial showed particular benefit in older patients with HFpEF. Policy priorities include expanding insurance coverage for preventive screening and novel therapies (SGLT2i, GLP-1 RAs, nsMRAs), reducing clinical inertia through team-based care models with closer follow-up intervals, and ensuring equitable access to evidence-based therapies across diverse populations. Digital health and AI hold promise for personalized risk prediction, remote monitoring (e.g., wearable devices, implantable PA pressure monitors), and virtual cardiac rehabilitation to overcome access barriers. Figure  Lala A, Beavers C, Blumer V, et al. The continuum of prevention and heart failure in cardiovascular medicine: a joint scientific statement from the Heart Failure Society of America and the American Society for Preventive Cardiology. J Card Fail. 2026;32(1):75-105. doi:10.1016/j.cardfail.2025.06.013) References Key references are bolded. Lala A, Beavers C, Blumer V, et al. The continuum of prevention and heart failure in cardiovascular medicine: a joint scientific statement from the Heart Failure Society of America and the American Society for Preventive Cardiology. J Card Fail. 2026;32(1):75-105. doi:10.1016/j.cardfail.2025.06.013 Heidenreich PA, Bozkurt B, Aguilar D, et al. 2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA guideline for the management of heart failure: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Joint Committee on Clinical Practice Guidelines. Circulation. 2022;145(18):e895-e1032. doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000001063 Lloyd-Jones DM, Allen NB, Anderson CAM, et al. Life’s Essential 8: updating and enhancing the American Heart Association’s construct of cardiovascular health: a presidential advisory from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2022;146(5):e18-e43. doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000001078 SPRINT Research Group, Wright JT Jr, Williamson JD, et al. A randomized trial of intensive versus standard blood-pressure control. N Engl J Med. 2015;373(22):2103-2116. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1511939 Levy D, Larson MG, Vasan RS, Kannel WB, Ho KK. The progression from hypertension to congestive heart failure. JAMA. 1996;275(20):1557-1562. doi:10.1001/jama.1996.03530440037034 Major outcomes in high-risk hypertensive patients randomized to angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor or calcium channel blocker vs diuretic: the Antihypertensive and Lipid-Lowering Treatment to Prevent Heart Attack Trial (ALLHAT). JAMA. 2002;288(23):2981-2997. doi:10.1001/jama.288.23.2981 Yusuf S, Sleight P, Pogue J, et al. Effects of an angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitor, ramipril, on cardiovascular events in high-risk patients. N Engl J Med. 2000;342(3):145-153. doi:10.1056/NEJM200001203420301 Zinman B, Wanner C, Lachin JM, et al. Empagliflozin, cardiovascular outcomes, and mortality in type 2 diabetes. N Engl J Med. 2015;373(22):2117-2128. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa1504720 Anker SD, Butler J, Filippatos G, et al. Empagliflozin in heart failure with a preserved ejection fraction. N Engl J Med. 2021;385(16):1451-1461. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2107038 Solomon SD, McMurray JJV, Claggett B, et al. Dapagliflozin in heart failure with mildly reduced or preserved ejection fraction. N Engl J Med. 2022;387(12):1089-1098. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2206286 Filippatos G, Anker SD, Agarwal R, et al. Finerenone reduces risk of incident heart failure in patients with chronic kidney disease and type 2 diabetes: analyses from the FIGARO-DKD trial. Circulation. 2022;145(6):437-447. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.121.057983 Solomon SD, McMurray JJV, Vaduganathan M, et al. Finerenone in heart failure with mildly reduced or preserved ejection fraction. N Engl J Med. 2024;391(16):1475-1485. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2407107 Lincoff AM, Brown-Frandsen K, Colhoun HM, et al. Semaglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in obesity without diabetes. N Engl J Med. 2023;389(24):2221-2232. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2307563 Deanfield J, Verma S, Scirica BM, et al. Semaglutide and cardiovascular outcomes in patients with obesity and prevalent heart failure: a prespecified analysis of the SELECT trial. Lancet. 2024;404(10454):773-786. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01498-3  Kosiborod MN, Abildstrøm SZ, Borlaug BA, et al. Semaglutide in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction and obesity. N Engl J Med. 2023;389(12):1069-1084. doi:10.1056/NEJMoa2306963 Ndumele CE, Neeland IJ, Tuttle KR, et al. A synopsis of the evidence for the science and clinical management of cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic (CKM) syndrome: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2023;148(20):1636-1664. doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000001175 Khan SS, Matsushita K, Sang Y, et al. Development and validation of the American Heart Association’s PREVENT equations. Circulation. 2024;149(6):430-449. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.123.067626 Khan SS, Ning H, Shah SJ, et al. 10-year risk equations for incident heart failure in the general population. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2019;73(19):2388-2397. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2019.02.057 Bozkurt B, Fonarow GC, Goldberg LR, et al. Cardiac rehabilitation for patients with heart failure: JACC expert panel. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2021;77(11):1454-1469. doi:10.1016/j.jacc.2021.01.030 Packer M. Leptin-aldosterone-neprilysin axis: identification of its distinctive role in the pathogenesis of the three phenotypes of heart failure in people with obesity. Circulation. 2018;137(15):1614-1631. doi:10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.117.032474 Lala A, Tayal U, Hamo CE, et al. Sex differences in heart failure. J Card Fail. 2022;28(3):477-498. doi:10.1016/j.cardfail.2021.10.006 Bozkurt B, Coats AJS, Tsutsui H, et al. Universal definition and classification of heart failure. Eur J Heart Fail. 2021;23(3):352-380. doi:10.1002/ejhf.2115 Hershberger RE, Givertz MM, Ho CY, et al. Genetic evaluation of cardiomyopathy—a Heart Failure Society of America practice guideline. J Card Fail. 2018;24(5):281-302. doi:10.1016/j.cardfail.2018.03.004 Levine GN, Cohen BE, Commodore-Mensah Y, et al. Psychological health, well-being, and the mind-heart-body connection: a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2021;143(10):e763-e783. doi:10.1161/CIR.0000000000000947 Ezekowitz JA, Colin-Ramirez E, Ross H, et al. Reduction of dietary sodium to less than 100 mmol in heart failure (SODIUM-HF): an international, open-label, randomised, controlled trial. Lancet. 2022;399(10333):1391-1400. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(22)00369-5

The public conversation around Jeffrey Epstein has become increasingly distorted by sensationalism and partisan agendas, with many focusing on unproven, politically charged allegations rather than evidence that can actually withstand scrutiny. This pattern of hyped “bombshells” that fail to deliver has weakened credibility and allowed institutions to dismiss broader concerns as political attacks. By centering the discourse on speculation and association rather than verifiable facts, the conversation loses its ability to produce meaningful accountability. The result is a cycle of outrage that generates attention but ultimately protects the very systems it claims to challenge.A more effective approach would shift focus toward tangible evidence of systemic failure and potential ongoing concealment, particularly actions that can be documented and legally examined. Cover-ups leave trails—through inconsistencies, omissions, and conflicting statements—that can be investigated and proven, unlike speculative claims about past associations. Historically, it is often the concealment, not the initial act, that leads to accountability. By prioritizing evidence-based inquiry over sensational narratives, the conversation can move toward real consequences and expose the structural mechanisms that allowed the Epstein scandal to persist.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

AP correspondent Haya Panjwani reports on a change in crime rates for 2026.

The right journeys across the woke-dark sea for Christopher Nolan's “The Odyssey”; ICE boils over in Maine and Texas, and Trump waters down the death toll in Iran. This week, W. Kamau Bell grills and roasts Lovett, while Patrick Renna has fun in the ‘90s sun. And we play back the tape on our Second Thoughts.Find Kamau's new show "Who's With Me? with W. Kamau Bell" on YouTube or wherever you get podcasts. Every week, he sits down with someone he admires to give them their flowers, ask his most burning questions, and discuss how to make the world a better place. Check out recent episodes with Leslie Jones on turning pain into comedy, Robert Reich on the fight for democracy, and Kristen Kish on authenticity.For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com.

We start with exclusive CNN reporting about warnings from a DHS official that could have avoided the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's trial date has been defined. We have more details on how an AI model broke into a company's system – we tell you what it did. Tropical storm Bertha has made landfall, we give you the forecast. Plus, Elon Musk is challenging Christopher Nolan's Odyssey film with a ‘historically accurate' version of the mythological Greek poem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join Marian Pulford, Co-Founder and CEO of Kestrel Labs, for an insightful evaluation of why optimizing broken workflows is a losing strategy for category-defining startups. In the tech world, most founders compete by building incremental software wrappers designed to make manual tasks marginally faster or cheaper. Marian argues that the true deep-tech breakthroughs occur when operators challenge the foundational assumption that those painful workflows need to exist in the first place. Focusing on the built environment—one of the world's largest, most capital-intensive, yet least digitized markets—we explore how Kestrel Labs is eliminating the traditional, high-friction regulatory review loop.

Here on Soundside, we're covering Washington’s most competitive races ahead of the Aug. 4 primary election. Historically, one of the tightest in the state is the 3rd Congressional District in Southwest Washington. This area includes Clark, Cowlitz, Lewis, Pacific, Wahkiakum and Skamania Counties. It also covers a small part of Thurston County. It’s one of the few swing districts left in the country. Voters there have gone for Trump, but they have also repeatedly chosen a Democrat to represent the district in the House.... over a Republican. Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez currently holds the seat and is running for re-election. She faces a few challengers, like Brent Hennrich. He's campaigning to her left as a progressive alternative. Guest: Brent Hennrich, a progressive challenger running to represent Washington's 3rd Congressional District Related links: Minority Democrats in 20th District endorse progressive alternative for Congress | The Daily Chronicle What’s fueling the far-left surge? ‘Democrats themselves hate the party’ | The Seattle Times Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez challenged from left, right, center | The Columbian Thank you to the supporters of KUOW, you help make this show possible! If you want to help out, go to donate.kuow.org/donate/soundsidenotes Soundside is a production of KUOW in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR Network.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Molly Brookfield's book, Watching the Girls Go By: A History of Street Harassment in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2026) explores the historical, legal, and cultural history of street harassment in the United States. Historically, Brookfield identified the "masher panic" (late 19th–early 20th century) when reformers and municipalities labeled male accosting of women a public problem and enacted anti-masher ordinances or applied disorderly-conduct laws. On law and policy, the book highlights primarily local legal responses against harassment, with municipal codes and reinterpretations of existing ordinances more common than coherent federal action that criminalizes mashing. In Watching the Girls Go By, street harassment is situated on a continuum with other gendered and sexualized violence, with the argument that street harassment normalizes and underpins more extreme harms against women. The book portrays historical scholarly perspectives to street harassment including those of Cheryl Bernard and Edith Schlaffler. Also, the book builds on diverse historical sources and employs varying terms for similar behaviors. The author uses "intrusive behaviors" as a more precise analytic category while preserving period-specific terms when discussing particular historical contexts.  Mariam Olugbodi is a university teacher and a writer, she is the author of the monograph titled: “Stylistic Features in the 2011 and 2012 Final Matches Commentaries in the UEFA Champions League”, published by Grin Verlag. Mariam's greatest dream is seeing a world where knowledge is accessible to all. She does this through her volunteering roles on open knowledge platforms as a host and an editor. As part of her effort to maintain inclusion and diversity in knowledge transmission, she volunteers as a teacher in crises contexts. Learn more and connect with Mariam through her social links: LinkedIn, ORCID, Meta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Molly Brookfield's book, Watching the Girls Go By: A History of Street Harassment in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2026) explores the historical, legal, and cultural history of street harassment in the United States. Historically, Brookfield identified the "masher panic" (late 19th–early 20th century) when reformers and municipalities labeled male accosting of women a public problem and enacted anti-masher ordinances or applied disorderly-conduct laws. On law and policy, the book highlights primarily local legal responses against harassment, with municipal codes and reinterpretations of existing ordinances more common than coherent federal action that criminalizes mashing. In Watching the Girls Go By, street harassment is situated on a continuum with other gendered and sexualized violence, with the argument that street harassment normalizes and underpins more extreme harms against women. The book portrays historical scholarly perspectives to street harassment including those of Cheryl Bernard and Edith Schlaffler. Also, the book builds on diverse historical sources and employs varying terms for similar behaviors. The author uses "intrusive behaviors" as a more precise analytic category while preserving period-specific terms when discussing particular historical contexts.  Mariam Olugbodi is a university teacher and a writer, she is the author of the monograph titled: “Stylistic Features in the 2011 and 2012 Final Matches Commentaries in the UEFA Champions League”, published by Grin Verlag. Mariam's greatest dream is seeing a world where knowledge is accessible to all. She does this through her volunteering roles on open knowledge platforms as a host and an editor. As part of her effort to maintain inclusion and diversity in knowledge transmission, she volunteers as a teacher in crises contexts. Learn more and connect with Mariam through her social links: LinkedIn, ORCID, Meta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/gender-studies

Molly Brookfield's book, Watching the Girls Go By: A History of Street Harassment in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2026) explores the historical, legal, and cultural history of street harassment in the United States. Historically, Brookfield identified the "masher panic" (late 19th–early 20th century) when reformers and municipalities labeled male accosting of women a public problem and enacted anti-masher ordinances or applied disorderly-conduct laws. On law and policy, the book highlights primarily local legal responses against harassment, with municipal codes and reinterpretations of existing ordinances more common than coherent federal action that criminalizes mashing. In Watching the Girls Go By, street harassment is situated on a continuum with other gendered and sexualized violence, with the argument that street harassment normalizes and underpins more extreme harms against women. The book portrays historical scholarly perspectives to street harassment including those of Cheryl Bernard and Edith Schlaffler. Also, the book builds on diverse historical sources and employs varying terms for similar behaviors. The author uses "intrusive behaviors" as a more precise analytic category while preserving period-specific terms when discussing particular historical contexts.  Mariam Olugbodi is a university teacher and a writer, she is the author of the monograph titled: “Stylistic Features in the 2011 and 2012 Final Matches Commentaries in the UEFA Champions League”, published by Grin Verlag. Mariam's greatest dream is seeing a world where knowledge is accessible to all. She does this through her volunteering roles on open knowledge platforms as a host and an editor. As part of her effort to maintain inclusion and diversity in knowledge transmission, she volunteers as a teacher in crises contexts. Learn more and connect with Mariam through her social links: LinkedIn, ORCID, Meta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Molly Brookfield's book, Watching the Girls Go By: A History of Street Harassment in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2026) explores the historical, legal, and cultural history of street harassment in the United States. Historically, Brookfield identified the "masher panic" (late 19th–early 20th century) when reformers and municipalities labeled male accosting of women a public problem and enacted anti-masher ordinances or applied disorderly-conduct laws. On law and policy, the book highlights primarily local legal responses against harassment, with municipal codes and reinterpretations of existing ordinances more common than coherent federal action that criminalizes mashing. In Watching the Girls Go By, street harassment is situated on a continuum with other gendered and sexualized violence, with the argument that street harassment normalizes and underpins more extreme harms against women. The book portrays historical scholarly perspectives to street harassment including those of Cheryl Bernard and Edith Schlaffler. Also, the book builds on diverse historical sources and employs varying terms for similar behaviors. The author uses "intrusive behaviors" as a more precise analytic category while preserving period-specific terms when discussing particular historical contexts.  Mariam Olugbodi is a university teacher and a writer, she is the author of the monograph titled: “Stylistic Features in the 2011 and 2012 Final Matches Commentaries in the UEFA Champions League”, published by Grin Verlag. Mariam's greatest dream is seeing a world where knowledge is accessible to all. She does this through her volunteering roles on open knowledge platforms as a host and an editor. As part of her effort to maintain inclusion and diversity in knowledge transmission, she volunteers as a teacher in crises contexts. Learn more and connect with Mariam through her social links: LinkedIn, ORCID, Meta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Molly Brookfield's book, Watching the Girls Go By: A History of Street Harassment in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2026) explores the historical, legal, and cultural history of street harassment in the United States. Historically, Brookfield identified the "masher panic" (late 19th–early 20th century) when reformers and municipalities labeled male accosting of women a public problem and enacted anti-masher ordinances or applied disorderly-conduct laws. On law and policy, the book highlights primarily local legal responses against harassment, with municipal codes and reinterpretations of existing ordinances more common than coherent federal action that criminalizes mashing. In Watching the Girls Go By, street harassment is situated on a continuum with other gendered and sexualized violence, with the argument that street harassment normalizes and underpins more extreme harms against women. The book portrays historical scholarly perspectives to street harassment including those of Cheryl Bernard and Edith Schlaffler. Also, the book builds on diverse historical sources and employs varying terms for similar behaviors. The author uses "intrusive behaviors" as a more precise analytic category while preserving period-specific terms when discussing particular historical contexts.  Mariam Olugbodi is a university teacher and a writer, she is the author of the monograph titled: “Stylistic Features in the 2011 and 2012 Final Matches Commentaries in the UEFA Champions League”, published by Grin Verlag. Mariam's greatest dream is seeing a world where knowledge is accessible to all. She does this through her volunteering roles on open knowledge platforms as a host and an editor. As part of her effort to maintain inclusion and diversity in knowledge transmission, she volunteers as a teacher in crises contexts. Learn more and connect with Mariam through her social links: LinkedIn, ORCID, Meta.

Molly Brookfield's book, Watching the Girls Go By: A History of Street Harassment in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2026) explores the historical, legal, and cultural history of street harassment in the United States. Historically, Brookfield identified the "masher panic" (late 19th–early 20th century) when reformers and municipalities labeled male accosting of women a public problem and enacted anti-masher ordinances or applied disorderly-conduct laws. On law and policy, the book highlights primarily local legal responses against harassment, with municipal codes and reinterpretations of existing ordinances more common than coherent federal action that criminalizes mashing. In Watching the Girls Go By, street harassment is situated on a continuum with other gendered and sexualized violence, with the argument that street harassment normalizes and underpins more extreme harms against women. The book portrays historical scholarly perspectives to street harassment including those of Cheryl Bernard and Edith Schlaffler. Also, the book builds on diverse historical sources and employs varying terms for similar behaviors. The author uses "intrusive behaviors" as a more precise analytic category while preserving period-specific terms when discussing particular historical contexts.  Mariam Olugbodi is a university teacher and a writer, she is the author of the monograph titled: “Stylistic Features in the 2011 and 2012 Final Matches Commentaries in the UEFA Champions League”, published by Grin Verlag. Mariam's greatest dream is seeing a world where knowledge is accessible to all. She does this through her volunteering roles on open knowledge platforms as a host and an editor. As part of her effort to maintain inclusion and diversity in knowledge transmission, she volunteers as a teacher in crises contexts. Learn more and connect with Mariam through her social links: LinkedIn, ORCID, Meta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Molly Brookfield's book, Watching the Girls Go By: A History of Street Harassment in the United States (University of North Carolina Press, 2026) explores the historical, legal, and cultural history of street harassment in the United States. Historically, Brookfield identified the "masher panic" (late 19th–early 20th century) when reformers and municipalities labeled male accosting of women a public problem and enacted anti-masher ordinances or applied disorderly-conduct laws. On law and policy, the book highlights primarily local legal responses against harassment, with municipal codes and reinterpretations of existing ordinances more common than coherent federal action that criminalizes mashing. In Watching the Girls Go By, street harassment is situated on a continuum with other gendered and sexualized violence, with the argument that street harassment normalizes and underpins more extreme harms against women. The book portrays historical scholarly perspectives to street harassment including those of Cheryl Bernard and Edith Schlaffler. Also, the book builds on diverse historical sources and employs varying terms for similar behaviors. The author uses "intrusive behaviors" as a more precise analytic category while preserving period-specific terms when discussing particular historical contexts.  Mariam Olugbodi is a university teacher and a writer, she is the author of the monograph titled: “Stylistic Features in the 2011 and 2012 Final Matches Commentaries in the UEFA Champions League”, published by Grin Verlag. Mariam's greatest dream is seeing a world where knowledge is accessible to all. She does this through her volunteering roles on open knowledge platforms as a host and an editor. As part of her effort to maintain inclusion and diversity in knowledge transmission, she volunteers as a teacher in crises contexts. Learn more and connect with Mariam through her social links: LinkedIn, ORCID, Meta. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello Interactors,As Canadian and Alaskan wildfire smoke drifts across North American borders, it's easy to resort to feelings and language of crisis in the demand for urgent, immediate control. But fires are not new to these landscapes, and this “crisis” sits alongside others that are also on fire. Climate crises events bring into focus which histories we forget, whose knowledge we ignore, and which relationships we disrupt. Turns out it's happening at a cellular level too. The real danger is a world and ecology changing so quickly, and understood so narrowly, that it erases the very temporal patterns, memories, and ecological relationships that make adaptation possible.FIRE'S FRACTURED FREQUENCYThe climate crisis is often communicated through rising averages. We read of climbing global temperatures, sea levels, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, and acres burned. These measurements are indispensable, but averages can make crisis feel distant and abstract. In a forest, climate change is also experienced as an altered interval — as too little time between one disturbance and the next.A forest is not a passive surface. It actively shapes its own microclimate, stores carbon, and retains moisture until fire temporarily disrupts these relationships…and in doing so creates new ones.To understand what shorter fire intervals are doing to Alaska's boreal forests, ecologist Xanthe Walker and an interdisciplinary team of researchers examined carbon storage and forest recovery across 555 plots associated with thirty-one fires. They compared stands with different fire histories, including sites that had burned repeatedly before black spruce forests could fully recover. The absolute amount of carbon released by individual fires was broadly similar across fire-return intervals, but recently burned landscapes began with smaller remaining carbon pools and therefore lost a greater proportion of what remained. Repeated burning also consumed more legacy carbon — the carbon inherited from earlier vegetation and accumulated soils — and reduced the likelihood that some sites would regenerate as black spruce forest. Fire was doing more than releasing carbon in the present. By interrupting regeneration, it was weakening the landscape's capacity to store carbon in the future (Walker et al., 2025).Black spruce forests are not merely tolerant of fire but have evolved with stand-replacing fire as a recurring part of their life cycle. Their cones evolved to be little seed bombs that stay in the trees and release their seeds when they burn. This helps new trees grow on the ground where they're not protected by the canopy. That strategy works when fires recur at intervals long enough for stands to mature, rebuild their seed stocks, and accumulate biomass. Historically, boreal fire-return intervals commonly ranged from about seventy to 130 years. Black spruce may require roughly fifty years to produce enough seed for self-replacement. Yet intervals of less than thirty years are becoming more common in some areas, allowing another fire to arrive before recovery is complete (Walker et al., 2025).Under those conditions, fire can push regeneration away from black spruce toward deciduous vegetation or more open landscapes. Such places may remain biologically productive, but they are no longer the same forests. They store carbon, retain moisture, shelter organisms, but also carry subsequent fires differently. The landscape may not simply return to its former state after disturbance; it may cross into another ecological regime, organized by different species, intervals, and feedback loops.MEMORY, MEANING, AND MALLEABILITYIt is tempting to call such transformations unprecedented. In some measurable respects, they are. We know Industrial greenhouse-gas emissions are rapidly altering atmospheric and ecological systems on a planetary scale, and the effects are not confined to normal oscillations around once-familiar conditions. The rate, direction, and geographic concentration of change effects forests adapted to fire and may be unable to adjust when fire's frequency exceeds the time needed for reproduction and recovery.The fact that Earth has always changed does not make the present disruption ordinary. But neither does the climate crisis mark the first time people have faced the collapse of an expected environmental order. Many humans didn't survive the Little Ice Age, but many did.For many Indigenous peoples, colonization produced generations of forced displacement, altered fire and water regimes, destroyed food systems, suppressed governance, and separated communities from ancestral lands. What dominant institutions now describe as an unprecedented disruption may appear within Indigenous histories as another transformation imposed by powers that have long treated land, water, plants, animals, and people as resources to be reorganized.The word crisis can therefore describe an observable material condition while concealing a historical one. The flames are real, but so are the questions of who altered the landscape, whose losses are treated as new, who is expected to adapt, and who gets to define recovery. Potawatomi scholar Kyle Whyte challenges this framing, arguing that a dominant “epistemology of crisis” treats environmental disruptions as radically new, imminent threats (Whyte, 2021). This framing isolates the crisis from historical contexts of colonialism, allowing institutions to justify urgent, top-down actions that bypass local consent and justice under the guise of emergency.That framing carries two recurring assumptions. The first is unprecedentedness — the belief that the past contains few usable precedents or lessons for present conditions. The second is urgency — the belief that immediate action may justify setting aside ordinary concerns about consent, justice, and responsibility. Whyte's intervention exposes how crisis language can obscure Indigenous histories of displacement and adaptation while allowing new forms of dispossession to proceed in the name of emergency responses (Whyte, 2021).Whyte is not arguing that climate change is unreal or that rapid action is unnecessary. He is asking what calls for urgency and emergency action leads people to overlook or forget.When the present is imagined as unprecedented, earlier crises become difficult to see. Climate-related relocation may be narrated as a novel problem even though Indigenous nations have extensive experience with forced removal, shrinking territories, flooding, and government-directed resettlement. Declaring the current moment historically unique can erase not only previous violence but also knowledge formed through surviving it.Whyte contrasts crisis epistemology with an “epistemology of coordination.” Coordination begins not with novelty but with constant change. It asks whether the relationships needed to respond remain intact. Those relationships take the form of kinship and mutual responsibilities, including care, consent, and reciprocity. They generate what Whyte calls the “responsible capacity to respond to constant change” (2021, p. 52).This is a big geophilosophical change in how we think about the world. Adaptation isn't just about an organism or group of organisms changing to fit their environment, it's also about how things are connected, like people, places, history, and processes (the primary focus of Interplace). Fire isn't just about heat progressively burning through plants. It depends on things like how old the trees are, how much moisture there is in the soil, how many seeds are available, if there have been any fires before, what the weather is like, and the rules and laws that people have made about how to handle fire. What the forest looks like after a fire depends on which relationships are still around.The same is true of human communities. Memory is not merely a record of what happened. It is part of the infrastructure of adaptation. It carries knowledge of earlier disturbances, durable practices, failed interventions, and obligations extending beyond the present generation. A society that repeatedly labels each disruption unprecedented may collect and reason over immense quantities of data while remaining unable — or unwilling — to learn from other histories.CELLS, CUES, AND CONTINGENCYThe adaptive value of memory may reach far deeper into life than culture or nervous systems. Evolutionary biologists Maor Knafo, Elena Casacuberta, and Iñaki Ruiz-Trillo begin a recent study with the observation that “one of life's most remarkable features is its persistent and adaptive resilience in the face of constant environmental fluctuations” (2026, p. 1). They investigated whether a single-celled organism could use an environmental cue to anticipate future stress rather than responding only after that stress arrived.Cells exposed to a predictable light and vibration cue before heat stress experienced a 12 percent mortality rate, compared to a 27 percent mortality rate for cells subjected to unpredictable, random cues. The cells didn't just adapt to the heat; they learned to anticipate it, demonstrating that even single-celled life relies on temporal regularities to survive.The authors paired this experiment with a computational model. A nonlearning “blind” agent could adapt only through genetic mutation and selection across generations. A learning agent could also revise its phenotypic strategy within its lifetime, exploring alternatives when earlier responses performed poorly. In predictable environments, learning agents achieved higher fitness because they could use environmental cues to prepare for approaching conditions.The study does not demonstrate that cells reason as humans do. Nor does a cellular experiment prove a general philosophy of life. It does, however, offer evidence that even single cells can exploit temporal regularities in their surroundings. Adaptation is not always a passive process through which an external environment selects among fixed organisms. Organisms detect, respond to, and sometimes anticipate the worlds they inhabit.The model also showed that flexibility has its limits. As the simulated environment became more unpredictable, the benefits of learning started to fade. After a certain point, the cues that used to predict what would happen next didn't work as well. Keeping things flexible came with a cost, because it didn't give them any clear guidance. In the end, simpler, fixed strategies performed better. When the environment suddenly changed, the learning agents first took a big hit because their expectations had become useless. But their flexibility eventually helped them bounce back, but it also meant they made mistakes, got confused, and took time to adjust. (Knafo et al., 2026).Let's not get carried away with the comparisons. A forest isn't a Bayesian agent, and Indigenous knowledge can't be boiled down to simple conditioning. They're different forms of life, knowledge, and organization. What they do have in common is this shared principle: adaptation relies on meaningful patterns connecting past experiences to future situations.A black spruce forest can recover from a fire when trees have time to grow and produce seeds. A cell can prepare for heat when it anticipates it. A community can adapt when things change, remembering past actions, taking responsibility, and maintaining relationships. Resilience arises from a symbiotic relationship between living things and their environment. Life's resilience isn't innate. It's more that it stems from memory, prediction, adaptation, and readiness…until the world's race surpasses its ability to keep pace.RELATIONSHIPS, RECOVERY, AND RESPONSIBILITYGeographer Karen Bickerstaff warns against the dominance of a “catastrophic gaze” that portrays climate change as an imminent, universal threat (Bickerstaff, 2026). While planetary measurements are indispensable, this abstract framing can paralyze political agency, reducing people to passive spectators awaiting either inevitable collapse or a far-off technological rescue (Bickerstaff, 2026). Although our atmosphere is shared, climate exposure, responsibility, and adaptive capacity remain radically uneven. The crisis is planetary in cause, but it is lived and experienced through particular bodies, infrastructures, and local ecosystems.This planetary abstraction often fosters a form of “cruel optimism” — a reliance on grand technological promises like geoengineering or carbon-removal systems that allow us to avoid changing our politics or holding powerful actors accountable (Bickerstaff, 2026). The dangers of these universal, top-down approaches are highly visible in fire governance. Simple, blanket policies — such as total fire suppression or restrictive carbon-offset projects — frequently ignore the diverse ecological histories of fire and displace Indigenous burning practices, which ultimately increases the flammability of the landscape.In contrast to these universalizing fixes, true responsibility must preserve and restore the unique capacities of particular systems to respond to change. This is where Kyle Whyte's epistemology of coordination can turn to practice. His push is for climate action to strengthen the relationships — such as consent, reciprocity, and intergenerational obligations. This is what is his ancestors practiced surviving constant change (Whyte, 2021).Instead of top-down emergency responses that make justice disposable in the name of speed, we need “situated action” (Bickerstaff, 2026). While individuals cannot act on a planetary scale, they can act meaningfully within their own watersheds, neighborhoods, and local political coalitions. Climate action becomes durable not when it chases abstract global targets, but when it visibly improves local health, restores specific ecosystems, and corrects immediate injustices (Bickerstaff, 2026).This is not an argument for delay. Emissions do need to fall (leading to innumerable benefits), but urgency cannot excuse us from asking what kind of world our interventions produce. The task is to connect scales without allowing the global to erase the particular. A mature black spruce indeed stores carbon, but it also stores decades of growth, fungal relationships, and a history of fire and recovery. When fire returns too soon, the forest loses not just biomass, but time. Climate responsibility begins here. Not in the fantasy of holding a restless Earth still, but in preserving the intervals, relationships, and possibilities through which living systems can continue to adapt.REFERENCESBickerstaff, K. (2026). The perils of climate catastrophism: A call to situate crisis and change. WIREs Climate Change.Knafo, M., Casacuberta, E., & Ruiz-Trillo, I. (2026). Beyond diffusion: Bayesian learning strategies in single-cell life. Walker, X. J., Mack, M. C., Black, B., Dean, J., Kemper, L. F., Potter, S., Rogers, B. M., & Truettner, C. M. (2025). Increasing wildfire frequency decreases carbon storage and leads to regeneration failure in Alaskan boreal forests. Fire Ecology.Whyte, K. (2021). Against crisis epistemology. In B. Hokowhitu, A. Moreton-Robinson, L. Tuhiwai-Smith, C. Andersen, & S. Larkin (Eds.), Routledge handbook of critical Indigenous studies (pp. 52–64). Routledge. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit interplace.io

Our analysts Andrew Sheets and Mark Schmidt unpack why U.S. healthcare feels so expensive and the potential impacts of rising hospital costs.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Andrew Sheets: Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Fixed Income Research at Morgan Stanley. Mark Schmidt: And I'm Mark Schmidt, Head of Municipal Strategy at Morgan Stanley. Andrew Sheets: And today on the program, a discussion into one of the biggest mysteries in one of the biggest sectors of the economy. We're talking about healthcare costs. It's Friday, July 17th at 2pm in London. Mark Schmidt: At 9am in New York. Andrew Sheets: So, we're talking today about healthcare, which represents roughly a fifth of the U.S. economy, the bulk of job creation over the last several years, and in my view, honestly, one of the biggest inflation paradoxes that we see in the market. On the one hand, the high cost of healthcare is taken as a given, and it's something that many Americans still struggle with financially. But if you look at the official inflation data in the U.S., healthcare costs have been lower than normal, and that's been true now for a number of years. So, what's going on? How do we tie this together? And Mark, you just wrote a report that tries to do exactly that. So, what did you hope to accomplish with this report? Mark Schmidt: You're absolutely right. It's hard to underline enough just how large healthcare is to the U.S. economy overall. Americans spend nearly $6 trillion on healthcare. That's more than the GDP of the entire country of Germany. And if we think about prices, Americans pay more. A knee replacement, for example, costs $25,000 in the United States. That same procedure costs just $6,000 in France. Common heart treatments that would cost $3,000 in Germany or $10,000 in Australia cost $34,000 in the U.S. It also matters for everyone's local community. Healthcare jobs have been growing twice as fast as the rate of job growth in the economy overall. And those are good jobs. They pay above average wages. For many Americans these days, the most secure path to the middle class is a career in healthcare. Now, this may seem a little bit arcane, but it probably hits close to your portfolio as well. Earlier in the year, when we took a look at how equity separately managed accounts invest, they typically have a core overweight to healthcare. And even though American prices may seem like an American issue, many of the largest and most profitable healthcare companies in the world are actually headquartered in Europe. So, whether you're sitting in New York or sitting in London, the price of American healthcare probably matters to you. But as you noted, Andrew, it does feel like a paradox because although Americans cite healthcare costs as one of their top concerns, and although healthcare spending is growing at 6 percent a year or more, the official inflation data says that healthcare prices are in check. And at one point earlier in the year, healthcare inflation, according to official data, even dipped below 3 percent. It just didn't make a lot of sense, and that's why we got together with our colleagues across equities, fixed income research, public policy, and economics to dig into what was actually going on. Andrew Sheets: So, Mark, let's dig right into that. I mean, it seems like a perfect encapsulation of the so-called Main Street versus Wall Street perception of the economy. So, what's going on? How does one kind of square those two numbers? Mark Schmidt: The easiest way to understand it is that you can't walk through a grocery store and figure out the price of a knee replacement. And that's true both for you and me. It's also true for the government. They have to survey hospitals and health insurance companies. The trouble is that the prices that health insurance companies pay hospitals, well, those are trade secrets. So, at any given point in time, even for the best government economists, it's not entirely clear what the price trends are. And that's why when you look at the official data, healthcare inflation typically has relatively lumpy jumps in the series. You could see several months of 0.1 or 0.2 percent official growth in healthcare inflation. Or as earlier this week, you could see certain categories jump to 0.4 or even 0.8. Andrew Sheets: Another element, Mark, that you talked about in the report is that people are also consuming more healthcare. So, talk a little bit about that. How that factors into this dynamic, and again, is that just going to be the new normal as the population ages and we tend to spend more on healthcare as we get older? Mark Schmidt: That's right. The good news is that we're living longer lives. The bad news is that means that we have more chronic healthcare conditions to deal with. The good news is that more procedures can be done in outpatient settings, and those, generally speaking, are cheaper. The bad news is that inpatient care, inpatient prices go up as the complexity of procedures that actually happen in a hospital setting increase significantly. When you balance it all out, it's a situation where, thankfully, the United States and most Americans have the means and the wealth to pay more for healthcare. The flip side of that is that they are paying more for healthcare, and that's why we think that the recent softness in healthcare inflation is actually too good to be true. Andrew Sheets: Something that jumped out at me from this report, Mark, was just how important hospitals are in this equation. And the experience of the patient and the experience of the hospital can be different economically. And that difference can also matter for how this shows up in official inflation and government statistics.So, you know, it would be helpful maybe just to walk the listener through. If I go into the hospital and I need knee surgery. You know, how does that look like from my perspective in terms of paying for it, assuming I have health insurance through my employer? How could that look like to the hospital? And how could that look like coming out the other end into the official government statistics? Mark Schmidt: Well, of course, Andrew, the first thing that you do when you break your leg is you call six hospitals and shop around for the cheapest price, right? Andrew Sheets: [Laughs] Of course. Mark Schmidt: So that's actually the problem because when you get care, you're not in a place to ask about the price. And frankly, even if you asked your doctor or nurse what the price is, they probably wouldn't know. Not only is it not their job to know the price, but all of those negotiations happen after the fact – with the prices that the insurance companies negotiate with the hospitals. After COVID, hospitals had a lot more costs to spread out among the people who were coming in the door, and so they raised prices across the board, not just for procedures that were related to respiratory illness. Naturally, insurance companies noticed that, and they started to push back. So long after you get a cast for your broken leg – and by the way, I wish you a speedy recovery – insurance companies end up going back and forth negotiating with your doctors for exactly how much they should pay you. And although these prices were loosely set well before you walked in the door, the exact way it gets billed and coded? Well, let's just say there's a lot of back and forth. For a well-run hospital, the cost of talking to and ultimately getting reimbursement from your insurance company, that alone could be 2 to 4 percent of revenue. And in especially complex cases, that whole negotiation can eat up 5 to 7 percent of the total bill. You're also right to flag that hospitals really are still the central point of the U.S. healthcare system. Americans spend $2 trillion in a hospital setting. And hospitals overwhelmingly coordinate care for both primary, specialty, and pharmacy services. Andrew Sheets: Mark, another issue I wanted to ask you about was the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Medicaid, and how those programs fit into the story? Mark Schmidt: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act included a variety of measures to slow the overall growth rate of healthcare. Now, for all the reasons we just discussed, that's probably warranted. The Affordable Care Act is another wrinkle. Enhanced subsidies, which were already set to expire – did in fact expire at the end of last year. And as a result, more Americans are now uninsured. It remains to be seen how that impacts overall costs. In the United States, when you have a health emergency, a hospital is legally obligated to treat you because of a 1990s law called EMTALA. Even if you can't pay, the system eventually does. Historically, uncompensated care costs have been passed on to individuals and companies with insurance. For now, however, it remains to be seen whether these changes in law and in the overall number of people with insurance will cause healthcare prices to rise or fall. Andrew Sheets: And Mark, just for the broad-based implications of this, right? It's fair to say that in any health insurance system, there are some people who consume a lot more healthcare. They're unhealthy or they're unlucky. And there are some who consume a lot less. And, you know, this is something where that overall coverage question matters. Because if you have things that reduce the number of otherwise healthy people who are in those healthcare pools, it can raise the cost for everybody else. Those people who were in some ways subsidizing the higher consumers of healthcare are no longer there. Is that a fair way to frame it, do you think? And are there potential changes given some of these legislative actions that could lead to changes of what the pool looks like – and what overall costs could look like? Mark Schmidt: That's a great point. And healthcare is probably the only part of our economy where you would say, "Thank goodness I did not get my money's worth." As we think about it… Andrew Sheets: [Laughs] Very true. Very true. Mark Schmidt: As we think about it, most young and healthy people are going to be paying more for their health insurance than they receive in healthcare. Again, that's a good thing. Because American healthcare prices are so much higher than anywhere else in the world, paying in more than you get back? Well, that hits the wallet harder in America than it does in other countries. And that's why for many people – choice – choosing how much health insurance to have and how much to pay for it, really is central to keeping the American economy dynamic. The flip side, however, is that as Americans get older, more people have Medicare. Now, Medicare is pretty good if you have it. But the catch is that Medicare prices, according to most independent estimates, do not fully reimburse for the cost of care. So, as more seniors take up more beds in a hospital, that means that commercial prices, the prices for people who have private insurance through their employer, are likely to rise even faster. Andrew Sheets: So, Mark, I think a good place to close it out and kind of bring this all together is a really important conclusion of this report – is that hospitals have been absorbing a number of these rising costs of healthcare through lower margins for the hospital. And that has resulted in lower ultimate inflation because the inflation is measured out the other side, out ultimately what the hospital earns. And if you could just maybe talk a little bit more about that. To what extent have those margins been compressed? And what that might mean for things going forward? Mark Schmidt: That's right. We dug into the finances for hundreds of not-for-profit hospitals in the United States. They are facing higher costs and shrinking margins. Historically, hospitals have partially passed on expense increases of this magnitude. Now, in their conversations with insurance companies, the biggest benchmark setting of prices happens once every two to three years. So, we're not going to see hospital prices show up in the inflation data overnight. But when we look at hospitals across the country, their budget information and their guidance is consistent with firming prices. Andrew Sheets: Great. Thank you so much, Mark. I've really enjoyed the conversation. Mark Schmidt: Thanks for having me, Andrew. Andrew Sheets: And thank you for listening. If you enjoy Thoughts on the Market, please share it with a friend or colleague today. And rate and review us on wherever you listen. It helps more people find the show.

META's stock surged last week, but investors shouldn't ignore the risks. Meta shares climbed last week as Wall Street became increasingly optimistic about the company's AI strategy. The stock was up about15% for the week and erased the year-to-date losses. Investors are betting that Meta's enormous spending on AI infrastructure, custom chips, top engineering talent, and next-generation models will lead to faster revenue growth, stronger advertising tools, and new revenue streams over the next several years. The market clearly believes Meta has positioned itself as one of the leaders in the AI race. But while investors were celebrating, Europe reminded everyone that even great companies face meaningful risks. The European Commission announced preliminary findings that Facebook and Instagram may violate the Digital Services Act because of what regulators call "addictive design" features, including infinite scrolling, autoplay videos, and recommendation algorithms that encourage users to stay engaged for longer periods. If the findings become final and Meta does not make sufficient changes, the company could face fines of up to 6% of its global annual revenue, along with potential changes to how its platforms operate across Europe. Meta has disputed the findings and says it has already implemented significant protections for younger users. This could amount to a fine of around $12 B, but the bigger problem I see is a potential hit to ad revenue if they must change their business practices. Europe is an important part of their business considering it accounts for about 23% of overall company sales. We also can't forget the legal liability Meta is facing in the United States, which could ultimately total as much as $1.4 trillion. That number may sound shocking, but it stems from multiple lawsuits brought by numerous states and plaintiffs. The first major cases are scheduled to go to trial in August, with California, Colorado, New Jersey, and Kentucky leading the way. The lawsuits allege deceptive business practices, and potential penalties range from $2,000 to $20,000 per violation. Given Meta's massive user base, those fines could accumulate rapidly if the courts rule against the company. Beyond civil penalties, the states are also seeking disgorgement of profits, which would require Meta to surrender profits earned from the alleged misconduct during the relevant period. If Meta performs poorly in these initial cases, another 25 states have similar lawsuits waiting in the wings, significantly increasing the company's legal exposure. There are already signs that these legal challenges carry real financial risk. New Mexico recently won a $375 million judgment against Meta, and a separate federal trial is scheduled to begin early next year. The AI opportunity is also far from guaranteed. Today, investors are rewarding companies that appear to be winning the AI race, but the competitive landscape is becoming more crowded every quarter. OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft, xAI, and others are investing billions of dollars to develop better models and attract developers. Meta has responded aggressively by spending heavily on infrastructure and recruiting top AI researchers, but there is no guarantee those investments will generate returns that justify the enormous capital being deployed. A big problem is today's leader in AI can quickly become tomorrow's follower if innovation slows. I also believe that all of these companies will not succeed in this space, which will mean enormous amounts of wasted capital for the losers. Wall Street seemed to be focused almost entirely on Meta's AI upside last week, and that optimism may continue to drive the stock higher. But investors should remember that valuation is increasingly dependent on AI execution while regulatory scrutiny remains elevated. If AI spending fails to produce the expected returns or regulators force changes that weaken engagement, today's bullish narrative could change quickly. Meta remains one of the strongest companies in technology, but even great businesses are not risk-free. As investors, it's important to weigh both the opportunities and the risks, not just the headlines driving the stock higher today.   The spring home sales season disappointed in June The spring home-selling season ended on a disappointing note. Through May, existing home sales had been showing signs of improvement, and many real estate professionals were becoming more optimistic about the housing market. However, June's data told a different story. The conflict involving Iran contributed to higher inflation expectations and pushed mortgage rates higher, weighing on buyer demand. Existing home sales fell 2.4% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.09 million homes, well below economists' expectations for a 0.7% increase. Despite the monthly decline, the longer-term trend remains somewhat more encouraging. Existing home sales were still up 2.8% compared with a year ago, suggesting that underlying demand has not disappeared. There continues to be pent-up demand from prospective buyers, but many seem unwilling to make such a large financial commitment while borrowing costs remain elevated, even as housing inventory continues to improve According to Freddie Mac, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 6.43% last week. If mortgage rates remain near these levels, many prospective homebuyers may continue to delay their purchases, preventing a stronger recovery in the housing market.   Another Hidden Cost of AI: Steel Most people know that the AI buildout has driven up demand for advanced computer chips, contributing to higher prices for smartphones, laptops, and other electronics. They also know that AI data centers require enormous amounts of electricity, putting upward pressure on utility rates as more power is diverted to support AI infrastructure. But there's another cost that receives far less attention: steel. Steel is a critical component of every data center. Industry estimates suggest that new data centers will consume roughly 1 million tons of steel annually, representing approximately $1.4 billion in demand. Steel is used throughout these facilities from the structural columns, roof joists, and roof decking to the server racks that house thousands of AI processors. This growing demand has ripple effects throughout the economy. Higher steel demand can contribute to increased costs for automobiles, household appliances, commercial buildings, bridges, and countless other products that rely on steel. The impact doesn't stop there. Steel production is one of the most energy-intensive manufacturing processes. A single electric furnace steel mill can consume anywhere from around 50 to 200 megawatts of electricity per day, competing for the same power resources as AI data centers. As both industries demand more electricity, utilities face increasing pressure to expand generating capacity. Ultimately, who pays for that increased demand? The answer is often the consumer. Higher electricity demand can translate into higher utility bills for households and businesses as utilities invest in additional generation and transmission infrastructure. In regions where electricity supply is already tight, the competition for power is becoming even more apparent. For example, PJM Interconnection, the nation's largest regional transmission organization, plans to begin conducting supplemental power auctions with electricity generators in September to help secure additional supply. Auctions reward the highest bidders, meaning electricity increasingly flows to those willing to pay the most. As large industrial users and AI data centers bid aggressively for power, consumers could face higher electricity prices if supply fails to keep pace with demand. AI will likely bring enormous productivity gains and economic benefits over the long run. However, it is also creating secondary inflationary pressures that extend well beyond semiconductors. Steel, electricity, construction materials, and other critical inputs are all experiencing increased demand, and those costs eventually work their way through the economy. As the AI revolution accelerates, these indirect costs are likely to become an increasingly important part of the inflation story.   Inflation Is Cooling... But Don't Pop the Champagne Yet The latest CPI report was another encouraging sign that inflation is moving in the right direction. Headline CPI declined 0.4% in June, marking the largest monthly drop since 2020, while the annual inflation rate slowed to 3.5% from 4.2% in May. Core inflation, which excludes food and energy, was flat on the month and eased to 2.6% year over year. Much of the improvement was driven by a sharp decline in gasoline and broader energy prices. While this is welcome news, I'd caution against declaring victory over inflation. One of the biggest challenges with inflation is that it doesn't always show up in the headline numbers immediately. It often works its way through the economy in waves, especially when it comes to energy. A good example is my own pool service. My pool guy recently raised his prices, likely for two reasons: higher chemical costs and the increased cost of driving from house to house. Those are both directly tied to energy markets. Even if gasoline prices temporarily fall and help bring down CPI for a month, businesses often adjust prices more slowly because they have to account for prior cost increases and the uncertainty of where energy prices are headed next. That's why I think investors should remain cautious. The recent improvement in inflation was helped significantly by lower oil and gasoline prices following a temporary easing in geopolitical tensions. But with conflict in the Middle East once again threatening energy supplies and oil prices recently moving higher, that relief could prove short-lived. The trend is encouraging, and the Federal Reserve will certainly welcome softer inflation data. But as long as energy prices remain vulnerable to geopolitical events, inflation is likely to remain unpredictable. Businesses from manufacturers to small local service providers will likely continue to pass along higher input costs whenever they have to. One softer CPI report is good news. But sustained price stability will likely require a concrete outcome in the Middle East and more stability in the energy market. While again we welcome the positive news in this CPI report, the conversation around in inflation and what to do with interest rates will continue with the ongoing developments in Iran.   Higher Gas Prices Aren't Stopping the American Consumer If you were looking for evidence that higher gas prices are slowing down the American consumer, the latest retail sales report doesn't provide much support. The headline number was relatively modest, with retail and food services sales increasing 0.2% from May. But the year-over-year numbers tell a much stronger story. Total retail and food services sales were up 6.7% from June of last year. Even if you exclude gas stations, which saw an increase of 19.8%, retail sales still grew at an impressive rate of 5.7%. More importantly, when you look across the major spending categories, not a single major category declined year over year. Furniture and home furnishing stores was the only major category that was flat compared to last year, but again it wasn't negative! Some of the strongest performers included non-store retailers, which primarily includes online shopping, increased 14.2%. Electronics and appliance stores were up 8.6%, while clothing and clothing accessories increased by 4.8%. Building materials and garden equipment stores were up 3.5% One of the more interesting data points is that Americans are still spending money at restaurants and bars. Food services and drinking places were up 3.8% year over year, showing that consumers continue to spend on experiences and dining out despite higher costs and concerns about the economy. The big takeaway is that the consumer remains remarkably resilient. Yes, higher gas prices can eventually put pressure on household budgets. But so far, consumers have continued to spend across virtually every major category. The year-over-year numbers show broad-based growth, not just spending concentrated in one or two areas. The consumer may be under pressure, but they are clearly not out of the game yet.   Financial Planning: What's Next for Social Security The Social Security Trustees' most recent solvency report highlights the need for Congress to address the program's long-term funding shortfall. Under current projections, the retirement trust fund is expected to be depleted in 2032, at which point ongoing payroll tax revenue would be sufficient to pay only about 78% of scheduled benefits unless legislative changes are made. Importantly, this does not mean Social Security will become insolvent or stop paying benefits, it means benefits would be reduced if Congress takes no action. While no specific legislation has emerged, many policy experts expect Congress to adopt a combination of gradual reforms rather than a single sweeping change. Potential solutions include increasing the Social Security payroll tax rate from 6.2%, raising or eliminating the taxable wage cap from $184,500, increasing the full retirement age from 67 for younger workers, and slowing future benefit growth for higher-income retirees. Historically, when Congress has made changes to Social Security, it has phased them in over many years, and most proposals would leave current retirees and those approaching retirement largely unaffected. As a result, individuals already receiving benefits or those within roughly the next decade of retirement are generally expected to experience little or no change, with the majority of reforms likely to apply to younger generations who have more time to prepare.   Companies Discussed: Nike, Inc. (Ticker: NKE)  

APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. This Thursday APEX Express proudly presents “South Asians and The Labor Justice Movement.” This episode highlights Sandhya Jha, a pastor, founder and former Executive Director of the Oakland Peace Center, and racial, housing, and labor justice activist. In the first half of the episode, we discuss Sandhya's life, their path into organizing, and what they're up to now. The second half is dedicated to their recent project with the South Asian American Digital Archive's Archival Creators Fellowship Program. This episode was interviewed, produced, and edited by Swati Rayasam   Follow @Sandhya Jha on Facebook and check out Sandhya's website https://sandhyajha.com/    APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Listen to the episode live on KPFA 94.1 in San Francisco, 89.3 in Berkeley, and online at KPFA.org.  References throughout the Show and Links: Without Fear Consulting Interfaith Alliance Oakland Peace Center Book – Blueprint for a Revolution Book – The Selected Writings of Eqbal Ahmad Podcast – Bending Toward Justice: Avatar the Last Airbender for the Global Majority The Alliance of South Asians Taking Action – ASATA Bay Area Solidarity Summer South Asian American Digital Archive Archival Creators Fellowship Program Sandhya Jha's project, you can listen to all of the oral histories here. Solidarity Forever Online Exhibit Arab Resource and Organizing Center Block the Boat No Tech for Apartheid  University of California Labor Center Equality Labs California Trade Justice Coalition NAFCON – National Alliance for Filipino Concerns Filipino Community Center Madhvi Trivedi Patak Transcript ​[00:00:00]  Miata Tan: Hello and welcome! You are tuning in to APEX Express—a weekly radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. I'm your host, Miata Tan. Tonight we're revisiting an episode from our archives, first aired January 5th, 2023. We're bringing it back this week in honor of South Asian American Heritage Month. This one centers Sandhya Jha — a pastor, organizer, and founder of the Oakland Peace Center — in conversation with APEX producer Swati Rayasam. The first half traces Sandhya's path into organizing, from a labor campaign at Johns Hopkins to two decades of interfaith and racial justice work. The second half digs into Sandhya's project with the South Asian American Digital Archive, where she spent a year interviewing South Asian workers inside the labor movement — collecting stories that don't usually make it into the archive. Here's Swati Rayasam in conversation with Sandhya Jha. [00:01:00] Swati Rayasam: I'm really excited actually today to talk to Sandhya Jha, who is a really close friend of mine. Hi Sandhya. Hi there. Sandhya is, a Pastor is a consultant and has been working on this really amazing project with the South Asian American Digital Archive that will get into later in the episode. But yeah, Sandhya I'm just really excited to learn more about you and to hear more of your story and, let's just dive in. [00:01:26] Swati Rayasam: Absolutely. [00:01:27] Swati Rayasam: We should first talk a little bit about how we know each other, you have this long organizing background. I've been in the Bay Area for the past seven years and I would be totally lying if I said I have not historically been, or I'm not even currently an active fangirl of yours. You are literally a pastor. You are a movement worker, how did you get involved in organizing? [00:01:53] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. So I am the product of my parents who were generous, compassionate [00:02:00] people who thought about the world beyond themselves, but were never involved in organizing or activism or anything like that. I think for anybody who comes from immigrant backgrounds, it's hard to tell our stories without naming who we come from. Right. And so my father was Sunil Kumar Jha from the village of Tildanga in West Bengal. My mother, who is still alive is Jeanette Campbell Jha. She is from Glasgow. So I come from a mixed religion and mixed race home. My parents chose not to name me Sandhya Campbell Jha not to give me that kind of grounding, but I was called Sandhya Rani Jha, which is a lot to live up to, well, yes, Rani does mean Queen. But it was actually handed down to me, part of the reason they wanted that middle name was it was my aunt's name, Durga Rani Upadhyay and she was the one who really [00:03:00] brokered my mother's acceptance into the Indian family and I think that there was something about being accepted on the Indian side of the family and not for many, many years on the Scottish side. That caused my parents and particularly my mother to double down on making sure I knew who I came from and who I came from was my people in the village of Tildanga. [00:03:23] Sandhya Jha: I grew up in Akron, Ohio, so we immigrated to this country when I was a toddler, in the late 1970s, which was a complicated time for Asian immigrants to be in the Midwest because it was a time that the rust belt was rusting and there was a growing sense that we were the reason. But also I grew up alongside folks who were trying to figure out how to put food on the table. So I think that landscape shaped me in a lot of ways. And I also come from people who grew up in poor working communities. And[00:04:00] when I went off to college, there was an organizing campaign. The board of directors of the university had created a for-profit corporation with the exact same board. [00:04:15] Swati Rayasam: Oh wow. [00:04:16] Sandhya Jha: So that the universities could subcontract all of their catering, all of their custodial work to this… basically Shell corporation. [00:04:28] Swati Rayasam: Are we telling on the university? [00:04:29] Sandhya Jha: Mm, Yeah. Why not? It was Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and I think that's relevant because the tension between Black communities next to Johns Hopkins Medical School and the school itself were very real because this was part of a very long history of exploiting community members. So the workers were organizing, and you know, I had read about activism, I cared about it. I paid as much attention as I could for a high school student. But when I got to college, this organizing [00:05:00] campaign was going, and the workers were really clear, Hey, college kids who are excited about this, we do have a role for you. It's to fill the crowd. It's to cheer us on. It's to when we ask you communicate to the university that our well-being matters to you because they will listen to you in different ways. But the campaign centered the workers and was really clear with us about what our role was because we were the folks with all the privilege by getting to be there, right? We had tons of privilege and it was a really good lesson for me. I am so grateful. The first organizing campaign I was a part of was a labor campaign that understood what it meant to center the people who were the most impacted by injustice and I think that shaped the rest of my career. [00:05:46] Swati Rayasam: And that's so special too because I think for many people who come into organizing, and I will definitely cop to this myself, like coming up and organizing through high school and college level organizing. When you are a student, nobody ever [00:06:00] tells you that actually you are the least useful kind of organizer that exists. Right. You are in this incredibly enclaved community. Your oppressor, the university, all they have to do is wait for you to graduate institutional memory will not keep you. Yeah. Right. And I think that it is, it's this perfect storm of, you have actually sometimes cool ideas, sometimes very rudimentary ideas, but you also have this turnover issue and you have this sense of self import, which often comes with your teens, early twenties. Yep. As you're just figuring all of that out. So Yeah, self differentiation, right? It's a narcissistic phase in our development. . [00:06:46] Swati Rayasam: It absolutely is and I think that's so important, and I can't imagine how my life would be shaped if I didn't have to spend a lot of time unlearning the self import and narcissism that I had gained through student [00:07:00] organizing. [00:07:00] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. No, I am really, really grateful for it. [00:07:02] Sandhya Jha: My first job outta college was working for a member of Congress, which sounds super fancy and pretentious, but, a member of congress from Akron, Ohio. So put that all in perspective. His name, believe it or not, was Tom Sawyer. Oh, wow. What I loved about Tom was back in those days, he believed very strongly that 80% of legislation was nonpartisan and that was the part that he spent most of his time on. He would weigh in with his party, when they were dealing with that 20% pretty consistently. But he was more interested in the stuff that everybody could agree on and I remember for about 15 years after I worked for him, I looked back and found myself thinking that was so naive. How did he not understand where we were about to head with the divisions between the political parties? But at this point in my life, I realize the people I respect most in organizing work keep pointing out that the binary of [00:08:00] left and right actually doesn't serve us very well. One of my biggest heroes in the movement right now is the Reverend Dr. William Barber, [00:08:07] Swati Rayasam: Hometown hero of mine. Yes. [00:08:09] Sandhya Jha: Poor People's campaign from North Carolina. And he always talks about how it's not about right and left. It's about right and wrong. And it turns out that when we engage in organizing with the awareness that there are huge swaths of things that most of us are well served by, we can do better organizing. And that was actually how Tom was legislating. And at a certain point I realized that my deep passion was around racial justice, but the distinct experience I had in a multi religious household was an awareness of how religion was being used as a weapon. I had an obsession. Every paper in college I wrote was about the Christian coalition, this right wing, organizing body in the nineties. So a friend of mine [00:09:00] said, You know, there's an interfaith organization working against the Christian Coalition. And it was called the Interfaith Alliance. Her mom had been a superintendent in Washington state in eastern Washington and was a pretty conservative person by my standards. [00:09:18] Sandhya Jha: But, Dr. Chow believed in multiculturalism and believed in teaching evolution. And the Christian coalition had organized to push her out of her position as superintendent and the Interfaith Alliance of Washington State had supported her in that time. [00:09:38] Sandhya Jha: And so Liz said, you know, they've got a national chapter, a national office. And that's where I ended up, cutting my adult organizing teeth which was great because talk about learning lessons for our current moment where religion is being weaponized in ways that are anti-trans, that are anti-queer, that are anti-women, that [00:10:00] are anti reproductive rights, that are anti-immigrant and refugee. I am really grateful to have experienced the power of multi-faith organizing, around a lot of those same issues. So that was what I did in the early two thousands and then I went to seminary and public policy school, and then I ended up out here pastoring a congregation of 10 people in a building of 40,000 square feet. [00:10:29] Sandhya Jha: And long story short, that's how the Oakland Peace Center was born, was out of this dream of cultivating deeper collaboration among nonprofits who were dedicated to a shared cause. The Oakland Peace Center, which is a collective of 40 different nonprofits committed to dismantling the root causes of violence in our community. I was the founder of that organization and it was when I was pastoring First Christian Church of Oakland that I asked the handful of folks who were members of that church, what they wanted to [00:11:00] contribute to the community, and they said they wanted to contribute peace in the midst of violence. And for a dozen folks to have given birth to a space that in non pandemic years, saw over a hundred thousand people do things like the Lawyers for Black Lives Conference and to do Kingian non-violence training and to be a part of food and clothing distribution, to participate in all the very diverse ways that we can create peace is pretty impressive. [00:11:30] Sandhya Jha: And a couple of years ago, I left the Oakland Peace Center because a colleague of mine said, Anybody can run a non-profit. We need you to do what you're actually good at, and what she meant by that was we need more people of color doing diversity, equity, and inclusion work that is actually grounded in power analysis. That isn't just how do we be nicer to each other in the workplace, but how do we recognize the ways that systems of white supremacy [00:12:00] unconsciously often shape the culture of our workplaces? And what do we do to dismantle that white supremacy culture so that we can be building nonprofits and institutions of higher education and faith organizations, and even corporations that are dedicated to our full liberation, our liberation, the lands liberation. [00:12:23] Swati Rayasam: I mean coming, especially from the place that you come in grassroots organizing and in faith based organizing, what is it actually to transition into this kind of consulting space around racial justice and really interface with a lot of people that I feel like as organizers, we don't really talk to? [00:12:42] Sandhya Jha: One of my favorite things about this shift in my work is I love getting to work with folks who don't think of themselves as organizers, who, it turns out are organizers, Right. I think we sometimes create a cult of here's what an organizer looks like, you [00:13:00] have to be a Martin Luther King or a Cesar Chavez and what I love is getting to work with moms and with teenagers and with folks who think of themselves as caring, compassionate, individuals, and when I go into an organization and work with their handful of folks who care about this issue, the DEI team, I get to teach them how to strategically organize. I get to teach them how do you create culture shift over time? I get to teach them how do you figure out who your allies are? How do you figure out how to move people who are neutral? It turns out that there are a lot more organizers out there than we realize if we don't create one definition of what an organizer needs to look like. [00:13:45] Swati Rayasam: I have been reading this political scholar Eqbal Ahmed, who really talks about the way the burden is on those of us who are deeply committed to movement work, narrow definition people, the burden is really on us to try and [00:14:00] create a liberatory future that feels both achievable. Mm-hmm. and safe for everybody. Because when people engage in mass struggle and in revolution, there are people who are a hundred percent willing to put their lives on the line. People who are willing to die for the cause. And we absolutely need those people. And there are many people along the spectrum who, if you can create a future that feels like it's within their grasp, they will come with you. [00:14:30] Sandhya Jha: Yep. I teach a lot of organizing classes and have gotten a chance to teach alongside my beloved colleague BK Woodson at Allen Temple Baptist Church, they have a leadership institute there. And one of the books we use is Blueprint for a Revolution by Srđa Popović. And I feel like I learned a lot as we read that book together and thought about how to apply it to the work we're doing in Oakland. They talked about how by engaging in nonviolent direct action, [00:15:00] they created space for elders to be a part of their work and youth to be a part of their work and families to be a part of their work. By making the movement playful. They gave people hope and gave people courage because dictators are terrified of being mocked. [00:15:17] Swati Rayasam: Yeah, exactly. And I think by being really restrictive or narrow about who we view as actually valuable organizers. And I think labor movements teach us this a lot, right? We really cut ourselves off at the knees on our ability to build a network or to be in touch with the general population, many of whom are more connected than we ever give them credit for. [00:15:41] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. Yep. it's part of why I love labor organizing. I talk with a lot of people who are disenchanted with organizing who ask me how I can have stayed involved for the past 25 years. And why I've been able to stay in it is cuz I'm organizing alongside workers and they have [00:16:00] full lives. And the work that they're doing in the movement is so that they can live their full lives. And there's something about having that perspective and recognizing the why all the time instead of getting lost in the weeds of the what. Is so important in this work. I think that has been a big theme of my organizing life is how do we build to the greatest common denominator? As my friend BK often says how do we build towards those shared values that often get erased when we are engaged in the right versus left debate. [00:16:39] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I think that it is so important and I also think that it's really hard in this moment of what feels like constant trauma and re trauma. [00:16:51] Swati Rayasam: And to some extent especially when we're talking about the left right dichotomy there are real concerns [00:17:00] about safety. Yep. And there are real concerns about security and who you are in community with and who you can find even the smallest level of acceptance from to ensure that you won't have violence visited upon you. And I think that these conversations of united front organizing, Right. trying to bridge across difference mm-hmm. for a shared goal, for a shared liberatory future Yep. Are really important. And they feel kind of impossible to achieve right now. [00:17:31] Sandhya Jha: It's interesting cuz I think that in many ways that is true. There are a lot of conversations that I think people with privilege expect, people who are marginalized to engage in. And those expectations are unfair, what I found very frustrating was the number of people with a lot of privilege who would be like, Ugh, I just can't talk to those people. And I'm like, Then who's going to? Exactly. and so I do think that some of this is about being willing to have [00:18:00] hard conversations in the places where we have privilege and recognizing who's at actual risk and showing up in ways that are protective of who is at risk. But that doesn't mean walking away from people who aren't where we are. Right. Because the fact of the matter is everybody's on a journey. And I have watched at the same time some of the disposability culture in movements write off people without giving them any way to address harm, repair harm, and find a pathway back into community. [00:18:41] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. And I think that's why, at least I am feeling really hopeful about, what I've seen over the past couple of years, this really important track into transformative justice and restorative justice, to acknowledge that there is harm that has happened, there are harms that happen every day between people. [00:19:00] And also we are all on our own journey to unlearn the things that we have been taught either directly or indirectly by our upbringing, by our environment and that you cannot easily dispose of people and that people are able to come back into community. Now that comes with a very important caveat that like they recognize the harm. Mm-hmm. that. They have done or how they've been party to it, that they acknowledge that there is healing work that needs to be done both with the person that they harmed and also probably in internally. [00:19:35] Sandhya Jha: Well, and the community, folks who don't do RJ on a regular basis tend to skip the community aspect. Yeah. That there is actually repair that needs to be done with community and there's work community needs to do to figure out how to re-embrace reabsorb people who have done harm in ways that still protect the person who's been harmed. [00:19:55] Swati Rayasam: Exactly. In ways that do not erase the harm that has happened, but [00:20:00] acknowledge, contextualize it and say, Okay, we are patching this and we are working to move forward in step with each other. Absolutely. [00:20:09] Sandhya Jha: Can I just say that one of the other things that I think you and I have in common is a real passion for bringing joy back into the work of Justice I quote Fabiana Rodriguez a lot on this particular thing, because I was at an event she was doing eons ago, and she looked out at us and most of us were activists and she said, Listen, y ‘all you keep inviting people to a struggle. I'm on your side and I don't wanna join a struggle. I want to join a party. And that was like a call to arms for me when I heard her say that. I was like, Oh my gosh, you're right. We are so much more fun. Like, I've hung out with people who are anti-trans and anti queer and anti-immigrant and anti refugee. They are not fun people. No, no. We have all of the best parties. So I don't know why we don't [00:21:00] capitalize on that more. So I think the role of joy and justice is so important. And this is why I was so excited to have you on the podcast that I launched recently. [00:21:11] Sandhya Jha: Right. Bending Towards Justice Avatar the last Airbender for the Global Majority. [00:21:15] Swati Rayasam: So literally like bringing it together. Two of my favorite things right, is like TV shows, wholesome TV shows like Avatar, The Last Airbender that I deeply love and organizing. Yes. All the work that I love. And I think it's true You know, what is actually really the important work is to work to build toward a future that is desirable Yep. That people want to be a part of. Yeah. That people can see happen. Yeah. And I think that is a lot of the difficulty that I have seen in some organizing circles. We are so well versed in what we are against and all of the things that are bad that so many people have a really hard time seeing or visioning or communicating [00:22:00] what it is that we are fighting for. Yeah. Right. And it's not enough to say, I'm fighting for a world where we can all be safe. Right. Yeah. I'm not, I'm fighting for a world where we can all take long naps in the middle of the day if we'd like to do that. Right. Yeah. But like really building and visioning that future of like, in this world in which we are all safe, there will be harm that happens. How do we deal with that? Yeah. What do we do with that? How do we make sure that it is able to keep everybody safe and also able to account for the times in which it is not able to keep everybody safe. [00:22:38] Sandhya Jha: Visionary does not have to mean naive. And we need it to be visionary. And sometimes I forget to do the visionary stuff. I've got a colleague, Dave Bell, he's a farmer who is also an anti-racism trainer and we do a lot of work together. He's a white guy who lives in White Swan, Washington, on the reservation and I remember being at a training with him and I [00:23:00] was all fired up and I was so excited about the conversations we were having and the people were really ready to do the hard work and roll up their sleeves. And Dave says to them, I would like to not have to do this work. And I'm like, What is he talking about? This is amazing. We're doing such good work. And he says, I would like for us not to have to talk about racism all the time. I would rather be farming. I would rather be, taking care of the cows in my field. [00:23:26] Sandhya Jha: I would rather be talking about my pottery work that I'm doing badly but learning how to do, I would rather be doing anything than have this conversation. But I don't get to be on the farm with the wheat, with the cows, with my bad pottery until we figured out how to do this anti-racism work. And it was a really humbling moment for me because I also get into that like I'm an organizer, that's my identity space. And it was this reminder of Dave's doing this. So he gets to live in a world where he gets to hang out in the fields and he [00:24:00] gets to, love on the cows. There's something about being reminded that we're doing this so that eventually we don't have to do it. That I think is actually visionary in its own way and it's important. [00:24:12] Swati Rayasam: Moving into a little bit more of the grit of like why I asked you to be on the show today. I met you originally when I moved to the Bay Area when you were the executive director of the Oakland Peace Center because At that time I was doing organizing work with the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action, which is a 20 year old bay area based organization, that was really founded around the Laki Reddy Bali Reddy sex trafficking. Yep. Caste and labor exploitation case that happened in Berkeley in 1999. And I was just so thrilled to be around and have in community so many rad desis. And you also did work with ASATA, right. Historically and are actively doing work with us. [00:24:56] Sandhya Jha: Absolutely. One of the places I think I invested the most [00:25:00] energy in where we got to spend a lot of quality time in the kitchen was one of the projects, Bay Area Solidarity Summer, an organizing institute, camp, however you wanna refer to it. [00:25:10] Swati Rayasam: Political education, Summer camp. [00:25:12] Swati Rayasam: Yeah, exactly. For young South Asian Americans who are committed to activism. What I think was the most beautiful part of that program when I was involved in it, and it's still the case today, is for young South Asians who think that they're the only ones who care about justice issues, who haven't met other people, who are South Asian, and identify as justice seekers first to meet each other and realize that there are people just like them. Then to look around and realize that those of us who are usually 10, 15, 20 years older than them are also committed to the work and have been doing it for decades. And then for them to get exposed to the long history of radical visionary organizing and activism of South [00:26:00] Asians here in the US and also in the homelands of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and diasporic countries all over the world. [00:26:13] Sandhya Jha: There's something about realizing, Oh, you have contemporaries, oh, you have elders, oh, you have ancestors. Mm-hmm. Especially in the face of the model minority lie that so many of us have had imposed on us, this lie that all we are all we're supposed to be is cogs in this larger capitalist machine that are non disruptive, which is why we're allowed to survive. And if we are non disruptive enough, we might even be able to be comfortable. And to discover that there's more to our story than that is so exciting and I love, love, love being a part of that. [00:26:52] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I think that is like fundamentally one of the most important kind of activities that [00:27:00] happens in the ASATA universe, I was a kid who also grew up thinking that there were no other South Asians like me, or there were no other folks who were interested in justice. I spent a lot of time doing, reproductive and queer justice in the south; I always think about what would it have meant if I came in, BASS for 18 to 24 year olds. Yep. what would it have meant if I had come in at a fresh 18 and been able to basically be apprised of the fact that I have this history Yeah. That it's not just me. And that actually, immigration and white supremacy and neo-colonial culture has created this project of assimilation that all of our parents have been in on, in a way to survive Yeah. And to be safe. And I tell my, I tell my mom that a lot because she's always a little surprised about the organizing work that I do. And I was just like, Your job was to survive. My job is to liberate. Yeah. [00:28:00] You know? Yeah. And I could not do that if you were not so focused on creating that environment for me. [00:28:07] Swati Rayasam: I love that. [00:28:07] Swati Rayasam: we'll drop in the show notes, but, BASS – Bay Area Solidarity Summer is solidaritysummer.org. So we'll put that in the show notes as well as ASATA, the Alliance of South Asians Taking Action is ASATA.org. And yeah, I think that is a really good segue into how we got involved in this amazing project. [00:28:31] Swati Rayasam: You're tuned in to APEX express at 94.1 KPFA and 89.3, KPFB in Berkeley. And online@kpfa.org. [00:28:43] Swati Rayasam: I think it was Fall 2021 that you and I were talking. Yep. And you were telling me that you were involved in this amazing archival fellowship project. Is run by the South Asian American Digital Archive and [00:29:00] that you were going to do your project about labor. Mm-hmm. and South Asians. Yep. And my immediate, incredibly naive response was, how many South Asians are there in labor? [00:29:12] Sandhya Jha: Exactly. And it's not naive. It's interesting cuz I think that this project actually emerged out of my favorite part of BASS, which was when the young adults would ask what their opportunities were in the world of justice. And I would say, you know, there's a place for us in labor justice. It had never crossed most of their minds. Right. We don't think of ourselves as having a role especially in formalized unions. And so SAADA, the South Asian American Digital Archives has an archival fellows project. And the whole purpose of it is to diversify their archives and collect the stories that are usually overlooked in the telling of South Asian American stories. [00:29:56] Sandhya Jha: And they have done a great job over the years of collecting the [00:30:00] stories of informal organizing, like the Punjabi Taxi Drivers campaign, the Bangladeshi Nail Workers Campaign. Those were informal labor organizing campaigns. That have been really well archived and they're amazing stories. I wanted to make sure that the next generation of South Asian activists knew about the South Asians who were actually part of the formal organized labor movement. [00:30:30] Sandhya Jha: And so I spent this past year interviewing, maybe a half a dozen or so South Asian American workers. Generally, not always, but mostly what would be classified as low wage workers who found a pathway into formal organizing bodies, unite here or the building trades or any number of the formal unions that keep [00:31:00] the labor movement alive across the country today. And I'm really proud of the fact that we do have South Asian workers who have moved up the ranks to be official organizers or to be at negotiating tables. And so that's part of the story I thought it was worth us telling. [00:31:19] Swati Rayasam: And I am, I'm so excited that we get to dive deeper into this project and I really love your framing too, around the three large bins that you have, solidarity, spirit and struggle. [00:31:34] Swati Rayasam: Right? Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:35] Sandhya Jha: I started out with certain assumptions about what I was going to learn, partly because I've been doing labor solidarity work for 25 years at this point. I really thought I knew what I was gonna hear. And what I discovered was there were these consistent themes across, the interviews. that there were these notions of, Oh, what's meaningful to me is [00:32:00] getting to organize across cultures, getting to organize with people who, on the surface and even deep down are very different than me, but we share this vision of what our lives can be. And so that solidarity message I found really powerful. Also, and admittedly because I come out of a spiritual background, was probably looking for it. I was really struck by how many of the interviews ended up talking about the role of spirituality and shaping people's values. And in a couple of instances, organizers said, what my religion taught me was that religion needs to be challenged. And building up that muscle was what helped me challenge systems of injustice in other places. But others said that their journey with their faith tradition was what guided them into the work of labor organizing. [00:32:52] Sandhya Jha: And then that third bucket of struggle, I think is the lived experience of how [00:33:00] hard it is to take on oppressive systems of capitalism, how hard it is to take on decks that are stacked against us and what it means to have somewhere to turn in the midst of those struggles. I will say there were also a couple of lessons I was surprised by because my South Asian identity is so central to my organizing work, I was expecting to collect stories of people who were proud South Asians, who were also proud to be involved in the labor movement. And I assumed that they would see connections between those things because I certainly do. But what I discovered is for the most part, they were like, Yeah, I'm South Asian. I'm not saying that doesn't matter, but it's not super relevant to my organizing work. My organizing work is about [00:34:00] our cross-cultural solidarity. And that was something I hadn't been expecting that emerged as I did those interviews. Interesting. And I'm really grateful that the South Asian American Digital Archives likes telling all of the stories because I think I promised them that what they were going to get was, we're proud to be South Asian organizers. And what I got was, yeah, we're South Asian, we're proud to be organizers. And the that SAADA is like, yeah, that's part of our story too. [00:34:28] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. And I think that's, that I think is incredibly important. We have this really, amazing series of audio clips from your SAADA interviews that really represent a lot of the themes that you were highlighting about solidarity, spirit, and struggle. And I'm just really excited to play them as we talk through these larger themes in your larger project and the experience of South Asian labor organizers. [00:34:55] Swati Rayasam: This clip is from somebody that you and I both know, which [00:35:00] is Prem Pariyar. I was so thrilled that Prem was a part of your project. I think Prem is an incredible organizer, so yeah tell our listeners a little bit about Prem. Prem [00:35:09] Sandhya Jha: It was pretty exciting to get to work with him you know, he moved here from Nepal and in Nepal he had been a Dalit activist and he came to the United States and had this notion that in the United States there is no caste and he was disabused of that notion very quickly as a restaurant worker dealing with anti Nepali bias in Indian restaurants, dealing with caste bias in Nepali restaurants, well dealing with Caste bias in all the restaurants. [00:35:35] Swati Rayasam: Hey, everyone, Narrator Swati here, I just wanted to put in an explanatory comma, a la W Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu to talk about some terms you just heard. Sandhya referenced that Prem was a Dalit activist and also talked about Caste bias. For those of you who don't know, Caste is a violent system of oppression and exclusion, which governs social status in many south Asian countries, although it is [00:36:00] most commonly associated with India. It works on an axis of purity and pollution, and it's hereditary. At the top of the caste system are Brahmins, by the way Sandhya and I are both Brahmin, and not even at the bottom, but completely outside of the system are Dalits who were previously referred to by the slur untouchable and Adivasis who are indigenous to South Asia. [00:36:25] Swati Rayasam: Despite being “illegal” Caste bias, Caste Oppression, Caste apartheid, are still prevalent, both in South Asia and as Sandhya references, in the United States. It manifests in many ways that people experience racial injustice, via socioeconomic inequality, systemic and interpersonal violence, occupation, and through the determination of marriage and other relationships. You can learn more at EqualityLabs.org and APEX currently has a show in the works that delves into this more deeply. Now. Back to Sandhya [00:36:58] Sandhya Jha: What is [00:37:00] delightful to me is Prem went on to get an MSW and is building out amazing mental health resources for Dalit communities for the Nepali community. Seeking to build out a program where there are more and more people in Nepal who are trained with MSW skills. [00:37:21] Sandhya Jha: I met with one of his professors from CSU East Bay where he got his degree and she said, You know, that the entire Cal State system is adding caste to its anti-discrimination policies thanks to the work he started at CSU East Bay. And it was really beautiful to hear that because the focus of my conversations with him were more around how his experiences in the restaurants led him into the solidarity work with nail salon workers. [00:37:53] Swati Rayasam: To just, kick back to the caste abolition work that Prem has been doing, that caste abolition work [00:38:00] at CSU East Bay has been such critical work in these ongoing conversations around caste that have been in the South Asian community primarily, but have been percolating elsewhere. [00:38:13] Swati Rayasam: You know, the state of California filed a lawsuit against Cisco systems Yep. For caste discrimination in their workplace and there have been all these conversations around caste and tech work and interplay that with the no tech for apartheid work. Right. That has been happening in Palestinian liberation circles. Yeah. And really building that solidarity movement. So I think that Prem is an absolute powerhouse Yeah. In that regard. But yeah, let's listen to this clip. [00:38:42] Prem: During that time, I got connected with other community organizer, like workers group. I got connected and so I was connected with nail salon workers, who were exploited at their workplace and with them, [00:39:00] I got to go to the capital in Sacramento. And so I thought I need to advocate for the restaurant workers. that was my first experience, like working with other workers and with the assembly members and like other other policy makers I shared what is happening what kinds of discrimination happening at the workplace. So I advocated for the restaurant workers at that time. I shared my stories and I supported the rights of nail salon workers. I was there to support them and they supported me as well, and it was wonderful. And finally that advocacy worked. And the bill was drafted and it was passed finally. And so it was huge achievement at that time. [00:39:49] Swati Rayasam: I love that. I think that is such a perfect story of when you win, we all win. [00:39:56] Sandhya Jha: And what I also love about it is he goes on [00:40:00] to talk about how he has remained in relationship with those nail salon workers. That they show up for each other, that they take each other food, that they show up to each other's baby showers and birthday parties, and there's this sense of community that emerges out of this shared struggle. And so that's a cross-cultural campaign. They were mostly Vietnamese. There were some Bangladeshi nail salon workers, but it was mostly people from a different culture than his. [00:40:27] Sandhya Jha: But somebody at the Asian Health Services program that he was at, saw his gifts, saw his passion, and he really responded to that in exactly, the most powerful way. I can imagine. [00:40:38] Swati Rayasam: And I think one of the nice things as well about that is that person at Asian Health Services connected Prem in and the Nail Salon Worker group, California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, Prem came from Nepal, I'm not sure, but the extent to which his organizing background and how comfortable he was in the US organizing space around labor [00:41:00] issues was probably significantly less that worker group took it upon themselves when they saw Prem come in to say, Oh, you are advocating on behalf of restaurant workers. Great. Why don't you join us? Let's help support and so the nail salon workers saw Prem, saw solidarity with Prem and said, It is our responsibility mm-hmm to bring you into this space to connect you in and to move in, struggle together. Yeah. Toward our shared goals of safety, of health, of rights. Yep. [00:41:35] Sandhya Jha: Exactly. [00:41:36] Swati Rayasam: So, we have this clip from Daljit, tell me a little bit about Daljit. Daljit [00:41:42] Sandhya Jha: Yeah. Daljit was an attorney who now reads tarot for people because she needed a break from the toxicity of that career and how it was taking her away from her family. Daljit is a deeply spiritual person and, [00:42:00] as I mentioned before, this theme of spirit showed up in some really beautiful ways in some of the interviews. I loved the way she understood her Sikh tradition as foundationally being connected with the land and foundationally connected with the people who work the land. [00:42:15] Daljit: Agriculture is our culture and the religion that I was born into, Siki, the founder of that faith was a farmer. And so a lot of the scripture, the analogies, the metaphors, the poetry, the music, the songs, the boon, the traditional folk songs, that can be taunting and teasing banter, all that stuff the land is the framework for that. And my most favorite line from the Guru Granth Sahib, our holy book, is, [speaks Punjabi] and that basically means that, the waters our guru, the airs our father, but our mother is Earth. And that's the greatest of all , and that's adherence to ecosystem. That's the [00:43:00] indigenous Cosmo vision that should be paramount. And that's what I try to teach my children. And so I think that's what I was taught as a kid without necessarily being able to pinpoint it, but it was just infused throughout our songs, our music, our food, the Harvest, there's two times a year that our celebrations, whether it Baisakhi or Lohri. It's so connected to the harvest and what is coming out of the soil or not. And you're connected to the cycles of nature. [00:43:28] Swati Rayasam: The connection between nature land, spirituality the way that it shows up in so many faith backgrounds and so many faith organizers, I think is really, really beautiful. [00:43:41] Sandhya Jha: And I love that Daljit Kaursoni who was raised in this tradition, has found her way to Buddhism and is raising her kids with those connections, but without ever losing this grounding in the liberation of the land, the liberation of the [00:44:00] people. [00:44:00] Sandhya Jha: And for that to be a key element of her spirituality, even as her spirituality evolves, I think it's pretty powerful. Tafadar [00:44:08] Sandhya Jha: One of the other people I got to interview ,Tafadar, he's a Bangladeshi American in the building trades and is a deeply committed Marxist. For me, this was a particularly exciting interview because I'm Bengali, so from West Bengal, before partition, Bangladesh and what's now West Bengal, were one state. And so it was fun to get to talk with him and to say, Hey, this is our legacy as Bengalis is radical worker organizing. [00:44:40] Sandhya Jha: And I remember saying to him, Some people in the building trades are not super excited to be working with brown people. And some people in the building trades are a little biased against women. And as a very, very progressive South Asian? How do you navigate that [00:45:00] space? [00:45:00] Sandhya Jha: And he said, Here's the thing is, yeah, I organize alongside some moderate to conservative white folks from New Jersey and he said, but in the building trades, if that moderate to conservative white guy from New Jersey decides he doesn't like my feminist politics, or he doesn't like my brown skin, if he decides that's a reason not to train me, he might die. And it was really interesting because even though I've been doing labor justice work for a long time, it was one of those moments I was like, Oh, right. Your work is very dangerous and you all have to rely on each other whether you like each other or not. That is the magic of organizing that no one ever talks about. This is why we can do cross class, cross-cultural work because literally you have to trust each other with your lives. Right. That was a really clarifying moment for me. And it was one of those interesting moments where I was like, [00:46:00] Solidarity is not a romantic thing. Uh, it is very much a matter of life and death. [00:46:05] Sandhya Jha: And I think that is really important and that exact thing that you brought up, you don't even have to necessarily trust somebody. Right. But you do need them. Yep. Right. And like that really clear understanding that like your fates are intertwined and it is truly in everybody's best interest. If you are trained well, irrespective of whether or not at lunch, I'm interested in sitting anywhere near you. I think that's really great. [00:46:32] Sandhya Jha: One of the things that was really exciting about talking with Tafadar was the reminder that labor organizing and formal union organizing at its best can be in solidarity with other movements really worker justice and housing justice and racial justice are inseparable, on some level. And so, one of the most inspiring stories I got to hear across all of these interviews [00:47:00] was a campaign that brought together folks across the anti- gentrification, the immigrant rights, and the labor justice movement. [00:47:14] Tafadar: It's ironic, building affordable housing with deadly exploitation. And, um, to do this, the de blassio administration, they embark on massive major rezonings of poor areas to relax the local zoning laws to be able to bring in these developments. And a couple of years ago, my, my union in local 79's. Took a very sharp turn towards a community organizing approach because labor can't win on our own, and that's the perspective that all of labor should adopt. In order to fight against the sweatshops in our industry. We united with a lot of community organizations in the South Bronx. [00:47:53] Tafadar: We formed the South Bronx, Safe Southern Boulevard Coalition. And along with these groups, we [00:48:00] protested and did a whole lot of activism, lobbying, community organizing to stop the rezoning of Southern Boulevard, which is a massive stretch in the South Bronx, while the De Blassio administration had succeeded in another part of the Bronx where there's like massive displacement still underway right now. And we were determined to stop it there. And it was a beautiful thing that we can unite because on our end as labor, we had to prevent all these trash companies from coming in and exploiting workers. And we were working with these tenants who are afraid of being displaced. And people generally, we do need revitalization of our neighborhoods. We do need investment. We do need things to be changed and made better. For us. If it's not for us, if it's done without us, then eventually we're not even gonna be here anymore. So we had that alliance going on and not only did we manage to stop that rezoning, we also educated the local city councilman on why his position was wrong and supporting the rezoning. And he eventually completely flipped this [00:49:00] position. And now chairs the land use committee of the city council from the perspective that we educated him on, which it's just been a very interesting dynamic. But, there's a lot of rezoning battles all over the city that's like the main front of anti gentrification struggles. And I've been watching those kinds of campaigns go on since I began organizing about 15, 16. I've seen very different approaches to them, but I've never seen any model really work until that one kicked in where Labor and the community came together. So that was one of my favorite campaigns because of that lesson that we were able to concretely put into practice and set as an example for not only for community movements all over New York City, but also for Labor. [00:49:43] Sandhya Jha: I think this hit me in particular because I've done so much work around antis displacement in Oakland, and my experience has been. [00:49:53] Sandhya Jha: That while for most of us on the ground, the connection between housing justice and labor justice is really clear. When you [00:50:00] start getting into the technical policy issues and the funding issues, the folks who are running labor and housing justice or affordable housing, struggle to find ways to collaborate. And it's been one of my consistent heartbreaks for at least a decade at this point because I work at the intersection of those things and sometimes I despair of us being able to find ways to move forward together. And so to hear a story like this one and to be reminded at core, those justice issues can and must be we already knew, must be, but actually can function together to build a better community. That was actually really life giving for me to hear. [00:50:45] Swati Rayasam: Yeah. I a hundred percent agree. And I think the point that Tafadar as well brings in the clip of just saying we knew that we could do this, but we knew we couldn't do this without community organizing. Right? Yeah. That labor couldn't do this alone. Yeah. [00:51:00] And I think that is a lot of what, when we talk about solidarity politics, it's not just a backdoor way of inclusion for inclusion's sake, we have to all do this. Actually, it is integral that all of us are involved in any of these campaigns because it impacts all of us. And because we are not going to win with only a single constituency and in the very same way that, Tafadar was identifying that labor couldn't do that alone. in community organizing spaces that you and I have been in mm-hmm. , like we are constantly talking about how we cannot do any of this without labor. Yep. And I think a beautiful example of that is the Block the Boat campaign yeah that the Arab Resource Organizing Center, started back in 2014 and then again during 2021 to block the Zim ship from the port of Oakland. And like this community organization [00:52:00] AROC could not do that without working with the longshoreman to collaborate with the port workers. And I think that when we see the marriage of community organizing and labor organizing, that is when we get the power of grassroots organizing. [00:52:16] Sandhya Jha: Something I wanna mention about the SAADA Fellowship that I was really grateful for: two things. First off, they did a really good job of making sure we got trained in grassroots oral history. So they took really seriously what it meant for this to be justice work. And they made sure we had exposure to methodology that was gonna lift up and honor and foster the voices of people whose stories don't get heard often enough. And that was a really big deal to me. The other thing is they made sure that we had an advisory board, people who are in this [00:53:00] work who could help us, figure out who to talk with, who could help us build out an event strategy. And you helped me build out my advisory committee. Anibel Ferris-Comelo who is with the University of California Labor Center, [00:53:14] Swati Rayasam: Prem Pariyar, a Nepali Dalit restaurant worker, organizer pushing for Caste as a protected category with Equality Labs, a Dalit feminist organization, and a social worker supporting the mental health needs of his and many other South Asian communities in Alameda county. [00:53:31] Swati Rayasam: Will Jamil Wiltchko with the California Trade Justice Coalition, Terry Valen who I did a lot of organizing with at the beginning of the pandemic, around the struggles that seafarers were facing with the onset of COVID-19. And he's the organizational director of the Filipino Community Center in San Francisco. The president of NAFCON which is the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns and just an all in all amazing organizer [00:53:57] Sandhya Jha: the last thing I wanna mention [00:54:00] is SAADA also helped me set up a digital exhibit with Art by Madhvi Trivedi Patak and I wanted to give them a shoutout because they're an incredible artist, but also they grew up in a working class family and didn't get exposed to what it looks like to do labor justice. And so as they developed the artwork to go with the digital exhibit, they got to experience the possibilities of labor solidarity that they hadn't gotten to experience as a child. And so I really loved that Madhvi was a part of this project as well [00:54:38] Swati Rayasam: All of the clips that you shared really identifying, again, these like huge fundamental pillars of solidarity and spirit and struggle. these clips were amazing. They are so rich and so layered with all of these people's varying and different experiences. Really showing in [00:55:00] all of these different walks of life at all of these ages with all of these experiences, that all of these people have this unified and shared identity in struggle, in spirit, and in solidarity for liberation. [00:55:14] Sandhya Jha: And one of the things that I think is worth celebrating is whether they see it as part of their South Asian identity or not. People who do identify as South Asian now have this resource that says there's a home for you in the labor movement. Yes, there are. There is a value to your voice. There is a value to your wisdom, there's a value to your experience in the labor movement. [00:55:36] Swati Rayasam: I think it's a beautiful project. Sandhya, I think it has been an amazing amount of work I've watched you do over the past year. These stories are so wonderful. I really encourage people to check it out. Where can they find your project? [00:55:49] Sandhya Jha: The website's www.saada.org/acfp [00:56:00] /exhibit/solidarity-forever. We'll put that in the notes. We'll definitely put that in the show notes. [00:56:05] Swati Rayasam: I just wanna make sure that we replug your podcast Bending Toward Justice Avatar, The Last Air Bender for the Global Majority and you can find that at tinyurl.com slash ATLA podcast, Capital P (tinyurl.com/ATLAPodcast). And then the last thing that I also wanna make sure that we plug is Without Fear Consulting. [00:56:27] Sandhya Jha: I love working with folks who know that their organization could be a little more liberative, and are, just not quite sure where to start. I love working with a team of folks who want to be about the work of incorporating diversity, equity, and inclusion into the DNA of their organization and I love setting them up so that they can keep doing that long after I'm working with them. So please do find me withoutfearconsulting.com. If you're interested in that. [00:56:58] Swati Rayasam: Amazing. Sandhya [00:57:00] Jha, Pastor, Racial Justice consultant, podcast host, archivist, singer songwriter, amazing cook. You can do it all. I think you deserve a nap. it has been amazing talking to you. I am so glad to be able to hear about your project and also to hear a lot more about your life. [00:57:23] Sandhya Jha: Yay. Thank you so much. [00:57:25] Miata Tan: That was Swati Rayasam in conversation with Sandhya Jha. As Swati mentioned, you can learn more about her work in the show notes at kpfa.org/program/apex-express. Speaking of Swati — she's currently working on an episode marking the 25th anniversary of 9/11, out in early September. It'll cover the work of the South Asian Coalition, a national network of organizations working together on South Asian American movement building. Keep an eye out for that one. This episode originally aired January 5th, 2023 — we're re-airing it this week in honor of South Asian American Heritage Month. This is APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, airing every Thursday evening at 7pm. Thank you for tuning in tonight. APEX Express is a proud member of Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality. A network focused on long-term movement building, capacity infrastructure, and leadership support for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders committed to social justice. Learn more at AACRE.org This program produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preeti Mangala Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's episode was produced by Swati Rayasam. Get some rest y'all. The post APEX Express – 7.16.26 – South Asians and The Labor Justice Movement appeared first on KPFA.

The spread of cabbage seedpod weevil (CSPW) into new areas of Western Canada means many canola growers are facing an unfamiliar pest in the battle to protect canola yields. Historically confined to southern regions on the western side of the Prairies, higher CSPW populations have pushed into central Alberta (reaching as far north as Edmonton),... Read More

Some baseball seasons are remembered for champions. Others are remembered for unforgettable players. But every once in a while, a season delivers everything—record-breaking performances, historic collapses, incredible comebacks, and a World Series that still has fans shaking their heads years later.In this episode Charles Combs and Dana Auguster will discuss the 2011 Major League Baseball season. The unforgettable 2011 Major League Baseball season was a year when Justin Verlander dominated the American League, Matt Kemp came within inches of one of the greatest individual seasons in modern baseball. It was also the final season of Albert Pujols' legendary run in St. Louis before free agency changed the baseball landscape.Also we'll revisit one of the wildest final days in regular-season history, when the Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves completed stunning September collapses while the Tampa Bay Rays and St. Louis Cardinals pulled off miraculous postseason berths. Then we'll relive an October filled with unforgettable drama that ended with David Freese becoming a baseball legend as the Cardinals captured one of the most improbable World Series championships ever.To contact the show, please email us at Historically.Speaking.Sports@Gmail.com

Annuity companies are counting on you to forget about your MYGA so they can quietly roll it into a low-paying renewal. In this episode, Stan The Annuity Man breaks down how the auto-renewal game really works—and exactly what you should do instead to lock in the highest contractual guarantees.    In this episode, The Annuity Man discussed:  What a MYGA is and how it functions like a CD How auto-renewal works with MYGAs Why renewal rates are often uncompetitive by design Using an agent of record to avoid bad auto-renewals Shopping for the highest-paying MYGA or SPIA at maturity   Key Takeaways:  Multi-year guarantee annuities operate much like CDs, but with the advantage of tax-deferred compounding when using non-qualified money. Auto-renewal rates on MYGAs are historically poor and are rarely competitive with rates available in the broader marketplace at maturity. Annuity companies benefit when contracts quietly roll over at low rates, especially when original agents leave the business and no one is actively servicing the account. Proactively working with a dedicated team to track maturity dates helps ensure policies are shopped at renewal and transferred to better-paying MYGAs or SPIAs without triggering taxes. Treat annuities strictly as contractual tools—focus on the highest guaranteed terms available rather than vague possibilities or marketing promises.   "Historically, the auto renewal rates are horrible." —  Stan The Annuity Man   Connect with The Annuity Man:  Website: http://theannuityman.com/  Email: Stan@TheAnnuityMan.com  Book: Owner's Manuals: https://www.stantheannuityman.com/how-do-annuities-work YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCXKKxvVslbeGAlEc5sra2g  Get a Quote Today: https://www.stantheannuityman.com/annuity-calculator!

Our guest today is Lily Bi, the President and CEO of AACSB (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) International, the world's largest business school association and global accreditor; she's been in the role for nearly three years. With more than 30 years of experience in strategy, global growth, internal audit, and technology innovation, Lily has held senior executive roles with organizations such as The Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the Internal Audit Foundation, and Kirin Holding Company across the United States, Japan, Singapore, and China.Lily is a proponent of lifelong learning. After earning her bachelor's degree in China, she returned to school to earn her MBA from the University of Texas at Dallas. A decade later, she again returned to school and earned her Ph.D in Business Administration from the University of South Florida.  Today, Lily shares with us the evolution of AACSB over its 110-year lifespan. Historically, AACSB has been thought of as an organization with a primary focus on accreditation. However, we'll learn in this episode that this was not always the case, and with Lily's leadership AACSB's mission will continue to evolve. In this illuminating discussion, we glean Lily's thoughts on a number of topics, including:• Teaching students to leverage AI• The need to solve the research gap with practice  • Understanding corporate hiring needs • The major trends she sees affecting business education• The issues deans should be addressing as they lead their respective organizations• Questioning the b-school's traditional reliance on discipline-oriented structuresLearn more about Lily Bi.Comments/criticism/suggestions/feedback? We'd love to hear it. Drop us a note.Thanks for listening.-Produced by Joel Davis at Analog Digital Arts--DEANS COUNSEL: A podcast for deans and academic leadership.James Ellis | Moderator | Dean of the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California (2007-2019)David Ikenberry | Moderator | Dean of the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado-Boulder (2011-2016)Ken Kring | Moderator | Co-Managing Director, Global Education Practice and Senior Client Partner at Korn FerryDeansCounsel.com

In this episode of The Masonic Roundtable, we open the floor to a spirited debate on a longstanding fraternal tradition, asking: Is "going dark" for the summer an antiquated practice? Historically, lodges paused meetings during the warmer months so brothers could tend to the harvests or escape the heat of unairconditioned halls. We question whether this custom still serves a purpose in 2026 or if it unintentionally stalls momentum, disrupts candidate progression, and creates a disconnect within our membership. Join our panel as we look at both sides of the coin: weighing the value of a well-deserved summer rest against the modern necessity for consistent, year-round engagement and fellowship.

Today we're diving into the exciting world of tea innovation with Emilie Holmes, Founder of Good & Proper Tea.Historically a challenging category for coffee operators, tea has seen a real surge in recent years, largely driven by the meteoric rise of matcha and growing consumer demand for wellness and iced formats.In this conversation, we explore the latest trends in tea innovation, from cold brews and concentrates to premium teas like hojicha, maojian and sencha. Emilie also shares why tea should be treated with the same care and storytelling as specialty coffee, and why long-term success depends on transparency and support for producers.Sign up for our newsletter to receive the latest coffee news at worldcoffeeportal.comSubscribe to 5THWAVE on Instagram @5thWaveCoffee and tell us what topics you'd like to hear

Our Global Head of Fixed Income Research Andrew Sheets outlines what could potentially go wrong and disrupt markets' optimism this summer.Read more insights from Morgan Stanley.----- Transcript -----Welcome to Thoughts on the Market. I'm Andrew Sheets, Global Head of Fixed Income Research at Morgan Stanley. Today, discussing three things that could disrupt a quiet summer. It's Wednesday, July 8th at noon in New York. As markets turn the page toward the second half of the year, there are lots of reasons for optimism. Global growth remains solid. Earnings growth is strong, and broadening across more companies. Capital markets remain open and deal activity is robust. We continue to think that the best analogy for current conditions is something like 1997 through 1998 or 2005 through 2006 – periods where corporate aggression was increasing, and had further to go, leading to equities outperforming credit. Even more immediately, July also happens to be one of the best months of the year for markets. And while one should never base their entire investment strategy on how far the earth has travelled around the sun, this month has been the best month for the U.S. High Yield returns, by far, over the last 15 years. The last time the S&P 500 fell in the month of July was 2014. So given all that, what could go wrong? Well, here are three things that are on our mind. First, a key part of our most optimistic view is that U.S. inflation will be lower than the Federal Reserve expects in the second half of this year, leading them to leave interest rates unchanged, rather than raise rates as the market expects. The risk is that this assumption is just wrong, perhaps soon. There is certainly an argument that, if the Fed is worried about inflation, it shouldn't wait to act, and the market is currently placing roughly 1-in-3 chance that the Fed hikes rates on July 29th. If that happens – and again, our base case is it does not – it could drive volatility. Second is earnings season, which kicks off next week. While the general trend of earnings is important, the bigger focus is likely to be on the results of large U.S. tech companies, and in particular, how much they plan to spend building out AI infrastructure. Over the last several quarters, almost like clockwork, these spending estimates have been revised higher and higher. And that has helped boost confidence in AI – as the spending is a sign that the technology holds promise – as well as boosting the broader earnings outlook; since all of this spending is becoming other company's revenue. Our base-case remains that this AI spending cycle has further to run, with capex from the major U.S. hyperscalers rising from over $800bn of spending this year to roughly $1.2 trillion of spending next year. But the risk would be that second quarter earnings now show more hesitation to spend, maybe because the share prices of some of these big spenders have been recent underperformers. And given how much the current growth and earnings story is linked to AI, and how popular AI exposure is with investors, that would create a risk. Finally, there's Iran. Our base case assumes a gradual renormalization of flows through the Strait of Hormuz, and we forecast Brent oil at about $75/bbl in 12 months time, which is pretty similar to current levels. But as of this recording there were reports of renewed hostilities, and the ceasefire may be fragile. The U.S. has already drawn down its Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its lowest-ever levels, potentially reducing some ability to absorb shocks if the conflict re-escalates. Historically, July tends to be strong, and markets have a number of helpful tailwinds at their back. But an unexpected rate hike, an unexpected reduction in Hyperscaler Capex, and a resumption of the Iran conflict are three factors that are not in our base-case – and could disrupt that. Thank you, as always, for your time. If you find Thoughts on the Market useful, let us know by leaving a review wherever you listen. Also tell a friend or colleague about us today.

Historically, if the Yankees keep striking out at their current rate, they won't win the World Series. Plus, Audio Files featuring Buster Olney & Brian Windhorst. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For the past 5 years, the ITX Product + Design Conference stands at the top of the company's calendar. In this Topics in Product Series (TiPS) episode, Product Momentum co-host Sean Murray called the 2-day conference event “my favorite two working days of the year,” complete with workshops, keynotes, spotlight sessions, and live podcast recordings. Sean (Director of Product Management) is joined by ITX colleagues Shannon Baird (Lead UX Designer), Kyle Psaty (VP of Business Development), and Dan Sharp (Product Manager, Product Momentum co-host). With conference excitement still fresh on their minds and drawing from their experiences across product management, UX design, and business development, the panel explored the conference’s most relevant takeaways. As you'll see and hear, one theme emerged: the boundaries that once separated the roles of Product and UX are rapidly fading. As AI changes how teams work, their success depends less on tools and more on the collaborative problem solving that grows from a deeper understanding of our products' users. Here's a look at what they learned: AI Amplifies Existing Product Practices Not surprisingly, Conference speakers discussed artificial intelligence and its impacts – but not as the primary topic. Instead, they focused on ways AI can be used to strengthen good product thinking, not to replace it. David Pereira, author of Untrapping Product Teams, explained that AI is most valuable when it enhances sound discovery, user research, and decision-making. Teams that already practice strong product fundamentals will benefit the most, he added. “AI accelerates what you are already doing,” David says. Leadership Is Something You Do, Not Someone You Are Leadership emerged as another major theme during the Day 1 workshops. In a Product track session guided by Rachel Kohman, attendees explored how leadership happens through everyday actions. Rather than being defined by job title or authority, leadership is revealed at all levels of the organization by speaking up, creating space for others, and helping teams navigate difficult problems. As Dan points out, “It’s really easy to think about leadership as a thing that happens when ‘somebody's in charge.’ But that’s not always the case. Leading is a verb that you do, not an overall overarching principle. I think there’s a lot of power in that.” Product and UX Deliver Stronger Results Together Our TiPS panelists believe that the Conference's most actionable takeaway is the growing convergence of Product and UX. Even though AI is enabling professionals to work across traditional role boundaries, a focus on shared customer and business outcomes are bringing the disciplines even closer together. “In past years,” Kyle shares, “guests like Jesse James Garrett, Jared Spool, and Rich Mironov really celebrated our conference because it brings together product and design. Historically, the impetus has been to actively bring those departments together. Now, those roles are converging in this kind of natural way; the game board is tilting us all together toward unified problem solving and shared solutioning.” [04:11] The ITX Product + Design Conference is my favorite two working days of the year! — Sean Murray, Director of Product Management, ITX. [13:28] I'm now building my own AI design expertise, and it's important to stop for a beat and make sure I'm asking the right questions as I design these tools. — Shannon Baird, Lead UX Designer, ITX. [18:51] One thing is clear: the work we’re doing – designers, engineers, product managers – is figuring out what brings value. It’s adaptive problem solving, right? — Dan Sharp, Product Manager, ITX. [19:50] The Product and Design roles are converging in this natural, authentic way that is tilting us all toward unified problem solving and shared solutioning. — Kyle Psaty, VP of Business Development, ITX. [21:05] That’s why this Product + UX Conference was killer for me. With AI technology becoming readily available, we’re seeing designers coding their own prototypes and product owners designing their own solutions. Our roles are more closely aligned and offering more opportunities to cross-collaborate. — Shannon Baird, Lead UX Designer, ITX. [22:33] I think we’ve lost a little bit of the in-person career development. And we wouldn’t have been able to make the observations that we were making about the blending of these worlds. There’s so much value for both distinct role sets; the opportunity to be there in person and the opportunity to talk with other people is really unique these days. — Sean Murray, Director of Product Development, ITX. Sean Murray. Sean is the Director of Product Management at ITX. His expertise lies in aligning teams with product goals, business objectives, and user value, all while creating a fun and collaborative environment where everyone can thrive. Dan Sharp. Dan is a Product Manager at ITX focusing on enterprise level clients and technology solutions. He enjoys shaping product strategy and turning a strategy into valuable solutions. Kyle Psaty. Kyle is ITX’s VP of Business Development. In this role, Kyle is the executive sponsor of the annual ITX Product + Design Conference. Shannon Baird. Shannon is a Lead UX Designer at ITX. She thrives on solving challenging problems with a user-centered design process, taking problems through research, ideation, prototyping, and testing design phases. The post 191 / TiPS: ITX 2026 P+D Conference – Converging Around Better Problem Solving appeared first on ITX Corp..

https://youtu.be/uePyn0u75sY Staff Sheehan, CEO of Project Omega, is driven by a mission to strengthen America’s energy independence and national security by rebuilding the nation’s nuclear fuel cycle and scaling a culture-first business rooted in exceptional leadership and execution. With a career spanning energy, sustainable fuels, hydrogen, and chemical physics, Staff is leading the development of technologies that transform spent nuclear fuel into long-lasting power sources while helping usher in a new era of reliable, abundant nuclear energy. We explore Staff Sheehan’s Scaling Framework — Build the Best C-Suite, Due Diligence Your Investors, Build Things, and Execute, Execute, Execute. Staff explains why exceptional leadership is the foundation of every successful company, why founders should carefully vet their investors, and why hardware startups must prioritize building real products over ambitious concepts. He also discusses how AI-driven energy demand is fueling a nuclear renaissance, why restoring the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle is essential to energy independence, and what it takes to scale both advanced nuclear technologies and a high-growth company. — Scale a Culture-First Business with Staff Sheehan  Hi, everyone. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. My guest today is Staff Sheehan, the CEO of Project Omega, an advanced nuclear recycling company with a mission to rebuild America’s nuclear fuel cycle end-to-end and unlock a new era of energy abundance for the United States. Wow. What a mission. Welcome to the show, Staff.  Thanks so much for having me, Steve. Great to be here.  Wow. You really are not playing small. Rebuilding America’s nuclear fuel cycle and unlocking a new era of energy abundance. Tell me about your personal “Why.” How are you manifesting it through the business? Well, I’ve been working in the energy industry, or adjacent to the energy industry, for a long time. This is the fourth business that I’ve started. Prior to this, I was in sustainable fuels. Prior to that, I was in metals and hydrogen. Before that, I did a Ph.D. in chemical physics. And before that, I was in software, but it was in something that was energy-intensive. So I've always been focused on how we can improve the energy industry in the United States. More recently, especially, that has become more and more intertwined with national security.Share on X  So I would say that for the last 10 years, I’ve spent a lot of time focused not just on energy, but also on national security. Right at the intersection of energy and national security is the nuclear industry. Over the last year, especially since four executive orders on nuclear power were signed, I’ve been focused on the nuclear industry. This has really been the resurgence of nuclear power in the United States over the last year or so. Yeah, it’s super fascinating. So, I mean, stupid question: why is this important?  Well, now I think we’re learning—and we’re having an acute learning experience, especially in the United States—that energy is a key bottleneck. And I think the thing that woke us up to that, in a lot of ways, is AI and the need for compute. But it’s not been only AI. We’ve been exporting manufacturing. We’ve been exporting a lot of things from the United States that rely on electricity or rely on energy in one way or another. Our exporting of that has caught up to us, and we now have to reshore a lot of things that maybe in the ’80s and the ’90s we decided to export out to China, for example. Now that we’ve realized that was not the greatest idea, we now are realizing that we need the energy to power it.  And so energy has become a key talking point, and the infrastructure behind energy has become a key talking point, especially in the United States. People’s electricity prices have gone up, so it’s not just industry and not just the folks who are building AI and data centers. It’s really everybody who’s now feeling the pain of our energy crunch. It’s crunched a little bit now, and I think people see that also because of what’s going on in the Middle East and the high price of gas. But the crunch is continuing because we know we have a high energy demand for all of the AI build-out that we’ve been doing for the last handful of years. Yeah, that is so interesting. And I remember in the 1990s, there was this phenomenon that actually the energy demand was falling, at least in Europe, where I come from, and there was overcapacity, and there was approval of overbuilding capacity. And the discussion was, “Okay, why do we need this? How do we slow this down?” And now the opposite thing is happening, which is pretty fascinating.  There’s a big question as to how idle assets are used, right? Because a lot of people don’t understand how electrical grids work. Everywhere in the world, energy is pretty much generated as you use it. So the energy that we’re using to talk on this podcast is being generated, depending on where you are located in the United States. From my location, it’s probably being generated by a natural gas power plant because it’s 2:10 in the afternoon, and this is around the time when a lot of natural gas peaker plants start to get going.  Depending on where you’re calling in from, those electrons are being generated live as we’re speaking. There’s not much storage on the grid. We do have some storage on the grid. California uses pumped hydro. They’re building battery infrastructure in places like Texas, but they’re not quite there yet. Grids don’t operate by just making the energy and then using it later. No. Grids operate by putting energy into the grid as demand is increasing. So the energy that you use is being generated live. You have to think about it that way.  Historically, back in the ’80s and the ’90s, there were not a lot of sinks for that live energy that was being generated, and people were also really bad at predicting demand. Another thing that happened in the ’80s and the ’90s, as I said right before, is that we were outsourcing a lot of our manufacturing to China. So China was building energy capacity because they saw all this manufacturing demand coming in. Their cost of labor was cheaper than what you guys had in Europe and what we had in the United States.  Robotics was not a thing, so everything was pretty manual. And the energy wasn’t needed here. It was needed, but Europe and the US were outsourcing, so we didn’t have the need for the energy here because we were sending all the jobs over to the Far East. They needed the energy there, so they built a bunch of coal-fired power plants. They built a lot of energy capacity while those conversations were happening in Europe. And now I think we’ve realized that it was a mistake to outsource so many things—and, in a sense, outsource your energy generation as well.  We need to find ways of either storing energy or converting that energy and using it productively. So rather than storing it, you could convert it into chemical products. You could convert it into a variety of different things. I think we've learned a lot since the '80s and the '90s, and I think that ties into the original learning experience: don't outsource everything. You need to learn how to be self-sufficient.Share on X Yeah. Yeah, don’t outsource your key competencies and your key resources. And energy is clearly one of those. Just a quick side question: How much energy is being wasted because it’s not able to be stored?  It depends on where you are. A lot of energy gets wasted in places where you have high hydroelectric utilization. But the cost to produce it is very cheap because hydro is indirect solar. The water evaporates, comes down, and it’s very dependent on the landscape where you can deploy hydroelectric power. In other places where you have power plants that follow load, like natural gas, for example, then you’re probably not wasting quite as many electrons as you are in places where you could potentially overproduce.  But I think we’re generally pretty efficient. We don’t waste too much, and a lot of that is because of the way grids work, where we predict how much electricity is needed, and we ramp production up and down as required.  Okay. Let’s talk about frameworks that you may have in your business. This podcast is about frameworks—the processes that are maybe unique to your business or that you discovered as you were building your business. Anything come to mind that can be explained in three to five steps, or as approaches or perspectives?  Yeah, I mean, I guess the learnings that I've had over all of my businesses. I think the first learning is: hire the right people.Share on X As a CEO, you have to spend an inordinate amount of your time on hiring, recruiting, and finding the right people. It’s super important to make sure that you have the best team. So that was my number one job when I started Project Omega: to hire the best possible team that I could hire.  And that was really, like, I told my investors that your first KPI is: build the best C-suite that you can. And I think I did that. I have a really incredible team of folks at Project Omega who are subject area experts in the parts of the business that they lead, and so I’m really happy with how I did it in this business. I’ve had stumbling blocks in prior businesses, and that’s how you learn. You call them learning experiences for a reason. My biggest stumbling block in my prior company was investors.  I didn’t do proper due diligence on investors. There’s ongoing litigation that I’m a part of that has to do with investors where you may not know where their money comes from. I think the number two thing is: make sure that you do a lot of diligence on who’s backing you. Typically, investors do diligence on founders, but founders don’t do quite as much diligence on the investors. And we need to flip that narrative. It’s especially true in national security. In national security, you have to be very sensitive to foreign actors. And this, again, was the issue that I ran into in my last business.  You can’t accept money from people who have significant backing from groups that are adversarial to the United States. A lot of those groups are U.S.-based funds. They’re not foreign funds, but they just get their money from foreign sources, and you have to be very careful about that when you’re in the national security world. It may not be as important if you’re making, like, a consumer app.  But if you’re doing things in energy and you’re doing things in national security, those are places where those people could seriously cause problems for your business down the line. And it comes out years after they invest in you. It’s not like they invest in you and then middle around two days later. All of these groups, including adversaries to the United States, are playing the long game. It’s not a next-week thing. It’s a several-years-from-now thing.  Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So that’s good advice. So build the best C-suite you can, and make sure you do your due diligence on your investors. What’s the next important lesson that you learned about building a business?  Focus on execution. Execution is the challenge. I think there are a lot of businesses out there that exist on paper, and when you’re a hardware company, that’s not the way to do things. I think there are a lot of on-paper businesses that, for better or for worse, have been very successful. Some of them have had IPOs and SPACs and things like that. There are businesses that exist on paper—at least in the nuclear industry, the energy industry, and the fuels industry—that have gone very far for on-paper businesses. But I think a very large portion of those—and I haven’t done all the statistics, but I’m sure Claude or Grok or GPT could—a lot of those businesses don’t do very well because they don’t have any actual experience building things in the real world.  So I think it's extremely important to execute, to get steel in the ground, and to focus on actually building things when you're in the hardware space.Share on X Now, of course, in software, that’s a little bit different. So it depends on whether you’re running a hardware or software business. In software, you may be able to keep going for a lot longer without a product or without having things in market because you’re building something that you know is going to have a huge splash when it comes out. But that’s not necessarily the way hardware businesses are able to be put together.  So give me an example of a business that’s on paper and not in the real world. Give me a hypothetical example.  A hypothetical example would be a business that has put together a number of contracts and a number of marketing materials about what they’re going to do, but they’ve never actually gone out and done it. Whether that’s at a small scale, like the lab scale, or at a larger scale, the point is they haven’t actually built it. My business—we’re very public about this. There are photographs and things like that of our lab out there. My business is at the lab scale. We’re working on going up to the pilot scale right now.  So that’s grams and kilograms of material. We’re not recycling metric tons of nuclear material. No business is doing that in the Western world except the one in France. So no business is doing that in the United States currently. But we’re public about where we are and what scale we’re at. A lot of businesses out there say they’re going to go out and operate XYZ widget, let’s say, and get a lot of traction around that before they’ve actually operated any sort of widget. And I think hardware is different than software.  Some venture markets have learned that, and some are probably going to learn that. But it’s been my experience over the last 12 years of running hardware businesses. My prior two businesses—Catalytic Innovations and Air Company—were both hardware businesses. And before I went to college and graduate school, I was in the software world, so I’ve kind of seen it from both sides.  Yeah. That’s interesting. So I saw your LinkedIn post about these underwater unmanned vehicles—UUVs, I think you call them. Is this like an underwater drone? Yeah. So, a UUV is an unmanned underwater vehicle. If you're trying to do something underwater, like do reconnaissance or try to find out what's going on under there with your adversaryShare on X or even a neutral party using a UUV is a way to do that without putting service members in harm’s way and a way to do that in a low-cost environment. So that’s one of the major applications for UUVs. But one of the big challenges for them is: how do you power them? You could use fuel to power them, but then they could run out of fuel, and then you have a stranded asset.  You could use electricity to power them with a battery, but the battery also runs out, and once it’s gone, it’s gone. It’s very hard to recover these. You’re not going to go down to the bottom of the sea to recover your UUV. The other option is to use—and we already do this, right, with our manned underwater vehicles, or our nuclear submarines in the United States—we already use nuclear power to power those submarines. And so that’s been the way that we've historically been able to operate underwater for long periods of time, and that's the way that I think we're probably going to go for these unmanned vehicles as well.Share on X  And that’s what my business focuses on. So we not only do this for UUVs but for space applications as well as terrestrial applications by building power sources. Those power sources are made using material that we recycle from spent nuclear fuel. Those power sources are called radiovoltaics, and you could imagine them as like an AA battery that lasts 30 years. And that’s really, I would say, the next step for operational energy. So we’re focused on using those as replacements for batteries in these small applications. You could think of it as a much broader application in the future—not just operational energy for the military, but beyond that. We actually use these sorts of materials in our everyday lives.  You’re sitting in a room, I’m sitting in a room, and I’m looking up at the smoke detector in my room. You’re sitting in a room with a smoke detector in it as well, and that smoke detector has a little piece of americium-241. Americium-241 is an isotope recovered from nuclear waste. We don’t recover it in the United States because we haven’t recycled nuclear waste in probably a little north of 50 years. But you can get these isotopes from places like France, where they recycle nuclear waste today. So all of us are sitting in a room with a radioisotope-powered device. Americium-241 specifically powers the detector in your smoke detector. Americium spits out alpha particles.  Those alpha particles are little helium nuclei. They hit a detector continuously, and that generates a current. Now, if smoke goes up into your smoke detector, those alpha particles hit the smoke instead of hitting the detector, and you won’t get that same current generation in your smoke detector. So that’s how we detect smoke, and right now, nuclear waste is sitting in all of our houses, keeping us safe. But that’s not really a mainstream part of the narrative yet.  Yeah. And what about the radiation? Is it not dangerous?  No. So for americium, there are different types of radiation. Well, not all radiation is created equal. There’s alpha radiation, which is what americium-241 emits predominantly, and those are little helium nuclei. Those can’t go through a piece of paper. Alpha radiation stops very easily. Like, your skin will very easily stop alpha radiation. Beta radiation, which is different from alpha radiation, is an electron that is flung out of a nucleus. So beta radiation is also stopped relatively easily.  Like, if you ingest it, then it could cause problems, but again, your skin can stop it. Gamma radiation is the one that we’re concerned about from a health perspective. Now, gamma radiation can be used for medical treatments and is very effective when it’s used in medical treatments, like to treat cancer, but gamma radiation is generally pretty bad because it goes straight through you. Gamma rays are little photons, and they’re very high-energy photons, so they can fly through you and they can cause damage to your DNA.  A lot of the, I would say, like, negative effects of any nuclear incident are really caused by gamma radiation more than anything else. Like Chernobyl, which is the famous one, had cesium-137 polluting a lot of the countryside around Chernobyl, and cesium-137 is a very strong gamma emitter. So gamma is what we try to avoid. At Project Omega, we don’t use gamma emitters for our power sources, and so all of our power sources use the safer types of radiation. That’s fascinating. So, Staff, I’d like to switch gears here a little bit and go back to business. So what drives growth in a business like yours—or specifically, your business?  A lot of things drive growth. Our business right now works together with a lot of groups in national security.Share on X We’re driven by the growth of the United States, and we’re driven by the growth of our economy. But beyond that, the demand for nuclear electricity has been very high, and that’s driven a lot of growth for us as well. How do you generate enough electricity to power data centers and power compute? That’s a huge problem in the world right now.  A lot of people who initially invested in AI are pivoting to invest in energy, actually, because they’re realizing the bottleneck for AI is not the chips. It’s the energy that’s needed to power the chips. As people are building these new assets that require all this energy, they’re quickly realizing that nuclear is one of the best ways to fulfill all of these energy requirements. As the nuclear industry grows, we’re seeing the need to reshore and bring the nuclear fuel cycle back to the United States.  We stopped doing commercial enrichment, for example, a long time ago, and there are a lot of great companies working on commercial enrichment. We stopped doing recycling and reprocessing back in the 1970s, and we’re bringing that back. We’re one of the groups working on bringing recycling and reprocessing back to the United States in a more responsible way than we did back then because technology is undoubtedly and unarguably better today than it was in the 1960s and 1970s.  That’s fascinating. So you’re helping all these old economies, which are obviously in a new skin, recover here—manufacturing and energy. So what’s one thing that you’re trying to figure out in your business right now?  So one of the challenges that everybody in the nuclear industry faces right now is scale. There’s a whole new group of reactors called small modular reactors, and another colloquial term for those is advanced reactors. Figuring out how to scale those is one of the challenges. So we’re working right now on scale. We're focused very heavily on scaling up our process so that we're able to build these true infrastructure projects that will ensure that the United States has a domestic nuclear fuel cycle going into the future. So that's really the main focus…Share on X  Being able to not only scale our technology but also execute at the current scale that we operate. On the execution side, we work together with two really great national labs: Idaho National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Execution in the nuclear industry is historically challenging, and working together with the government and the national labs is a big value-add because those national labs have the institutional memory, and they have the experience of working with radioactive materials and nuclear materials that we’re able to piggyback off of. They also have a lot of infrastructure that we’re able to work with.  Yeah. And when you say scale, is it about scaling energy generation, energy transmission, or the manufacturing of equipment that utilizes the recovered nuclear fuel? Or is it also about scaling the organization in terms of managing the organization? All of the above. All of the above. This time last year, we were pretty much one person. Or, this time last year, we were still a concept, and we started the business in July last year. So this time last year, we were pretty much one person, and now we’re close to 20. We’ve already scaled by a lot in just the last year. But we probably need to scale by another order of magnitude by the time we get to next year. So a big part of it is managing the growth of a high-growth and rapidly moving organization.  But a big piece of it is also scaling energy in the United States—scaling transmission, scaling generation, and scaling the production of nuclear fuel. Right now, we get a lot of our nuclear fuel from overseas. Twenty percent of the United States electrical grid is nuclear. So today, we use a lot of nuclear electrons to power, as I mentioned, based on our locations, we’re probably not using too many nuclear electrons right now. Or, Steve, I don’t know where you’re calling in from.  I’m in Virginia, the capital of data centers.  I take it back. You’re actually probably using nuclear electrons as we speak. So we need to scale that generation, but we also need to scale the fuel for those reactors. The nuclear electrons that you’re using to talk with me right now are most likely coming from Russian uranium that we buy from Russia.  I think your home country and many folks in Europe have learned that relying on Russia for your energy resources is not the greatest idea. We still, to this day, rely on Russia for a lot of our commercial uranium for our commercial reactors, and that’s something that we need to change. So scaling our nuclear fuel cycle in the United States is a key aspect of what we’re doing.  So what’s really fascinating is we were on vacation in Moab, Utah, just a few weeks ago, and we noticed that there was a lot of mining of nuclear materials there. Is this something that happened in the past and essentially the industry wound down in the U.S., or is there still mining of nuclear materials here?  So there’s very little actual mining of uranium in the United States. I think something like 99% of our uranium comes from foreign sources. So there’s not a lot of uranium mining. The management of nuclear resources in the United States… There is a good amount of nuclear work that’s being done in Utah, but there are a handful of states that actually do the majority of the nuclear-material legwork. Utah is one of them, I think. Idaho is the birthplace of nuclear energy, and so Idaho is doing a lot of work on the nuclear fuel cycle and nuclear materials management.  Idaho is where all of the spent fuel from our naval fleet goes at the end of the life of aircraft carriers and submarines. That’s public knowledge. You can look it up. There’s a lot of work that’s been done to make sure all of that material is managed completely safely and very effectively. So Idaho is the birthplace of nuclear energy, and it’s also where a lot of work on the nuclear fuel cycle is happening. That’s actually the other state where we operate at Project Omega. So Idaho is, I would say, one of the leaders in the nuclear renaissance that’s happening right now.  Okay. So that’s a really good point. So you’re in Idaho. Where else are you in the United States, and what would you like our listeners to do when they hear about you? Who are the people that you would like to get in touch with you?  Well, I’m calling in from Newport, Rhode Island, right now. So Newport, Rhode Island, is our headquarters. We have a laboratory that we operate that’s down the street from here. So we have some operations in Rhode Island, and that’s our headquarters. We also have operations in Idaho, and that’s where we’re building some of our infrastructure. We have a small contingent in the DC area as well. We have other facilities as well, but we keep those confidential. Publicly, we’re headquartered in Rhode Island, and we do a lot of work in Idaho and in the DC area. That’s fascinating. So if people get interested in what you’re doing and would like to get in touch with you or learn more about Project Omega, where should they go, and where can they learn more? They would go to projectomega.com. info@projectomega.com is our main inbox. We do a pretty good job of staying up to date with it. That’s also what we use for careers and hiring. As I mentioned, hiring is one of my top jobs. So we’re always interested in finding the best candidates out there who want to revolutionize the nuclear fuel cycle in the United States. That’s fantastic. So if you’re interested in the nuclear industry, recycling nuclear fuel, and driving the UUVs of the next generation, then definitely check out the Project Omega website and reach out to Staff. And if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure you follow us and subscribe on YouTube. Stay tuned, because every week there’s an exciting entrepreneur coming on the show. Staff, thanks for coming and sharing your wisdom and unique knowledge. And thanks for listening.  Awesome. Thank you so much for having me, Steve. This was great. Important Links: Staff's LinkedIn Staff's Website Staff's email: info@projectomega.com

Paul “Hembo” Hembekides and Buster Olney play a game of “Trend or Blip,” looking at the Marlins, Rays and Rangers. Then, they discuss why Aaron Judge is the rising tide that lifts all boats for the Yankees, the most obvious trade-deadline match, how bad is this American League — historically speaking, and more on Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s slog of a season. Then, Buster talks to longtime pro Rick Monday about snatching the American flag from field-invading protesters in 1976. Later, Sarah Langs plays The Numbers Game. And finally, Buster answers your questions during Bleacher Tweets. 0:00 Welcome 3:01 Hembo 4:13 Blip or Trend: Marlins 5:28 Blip or Trend: Yankees 7:10 Blip or Trend: Rays 9:16 Blip or Trend: Rangers 10:19 Blip or Trend: Cubs 11:39 Yankees sorely miss Aaron Judge 13:39 What happened to Austin Riley? 17:39 Bo Bichette back to Toronto? 25:50 Historically bad American League 28:50 Rick Monday saves the American flag 43:07 Sarah Langs plays The Numbers Game 44:33 Bleacher Tweets: PCA vs. Shohei Ohtani EMAIL THE SHOW: BleacherTweets@gmail.com REACH OUT ON X: #BLEACHERTWEETS Follow The Baseball Tonight Podcast on… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHeL6O-A-ASmSMwbSCFvPKEq1Cslo_lrw Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5FG6xCcd338SgZjZ9urHRI Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/baseball-tonight-with-buster-olney/id137699414 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Paul “Hembo” Hembekides and Buster Olney play a game of “Trend or Blip,” looking at the Marlins, Rays and Rangers. Then, they discuss why Aaron Judge is the rising tide that lifts all boats for the Yankees, the most obvious trade-deadline match, how bad is this American League — historically speaking, and more on Vladimir Guerrero Jr.'s slog of a season. Then, Buster talks to longtime pro Rick Monday about snatching the American flag from field-invading protesters in 1976. Later, Sarah Langs plays The Numbers Game. And finally, Buster answers your questions during Bleacher Tweets. 0:00 Welcome 3:01 Hembo 4:13 Blip or Trend: Marlins 5:28 Blip or Trend: Yankees 7:10 Blip or Trend: Rays 9:16 Blip or Trend: Rangers 10:19 Blip or Trend: Cubs 11:39 Yankees sorely miss Aaron Judge 13:39 What happened to Austin Riley? 17:39 Bo Bichette back to Toronto? 25:50 Historically bad American League 28:50 Rick Monday saves the American flag 43:07 Sarah Langs plays The Numbers Game 44:33 Bleacher Tweets: PCA vs. Shohei Ohtani EMAIL THE SHOW: BleacherTweets@gmail.com REACH OUT ON X: #BLEACHERTWEETS Follow The Baseball Tonight Podcast on… YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHeL6O-A-ASmSMwbSCFvPKEq1Cslo_lrw Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5FG6xCcd338SgZjZ9urHRI Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/baseball-tonight-with-buster-olney/id137699414 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the grand scheme of things, Lyme disease is a fairly new scientific discovery. It was first traced back to ticks in the late 70s and early 80s. The tick-borne illness can cause a rash, fever, pain, neurological complications, and even facial paralysis. It's spread by only two of the nearly 50 species of ticks in the United States. Historically, most Lyme cases were limited to a small region, including the Great Lakes area and northeastern US. But thanks to changing temperatures, animal migration and shifts in land use, scientists say tick territory is expanding. So what does that mean for Lyme disease risk? And do you have to be worried about it in your own backyard?Interested in more episodes about pests and parasites? Email us your question at shortwave@npr.org.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. It includes perks like bonus episodes, early access, archive access, curated playlists and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Congress is on the verge of sending the first major housing bill in more than 30 years to the president’s desk. The Hill’s Helen Huiskes breaks down what the legislation does. The Supreme Court is expected to issue rulings in roughly a dozen cases before July 4. The Wall Street Journal’s James Romoser joins to discuss the decisions that will test Trump’s power. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is rallying support against a ballot measure that would tax the wealth of billionaires in the state. Politico’s Jeremy B. White explains the unlikely coalition Newsom is building to fight the proposal. Plus, the Senate rebuked Trump over the Iran war, sentences were handed down against Texas immigration protesters, and a look at last night’s NBA draft. Today’s episode was hosted by Gideon Resnick.