GLOBALIZATION

India's Reliance backs US-based AI startup Exyn in $35 million funding



Manish Singh
Fri, December 23, 2022 

Reliance has backed the Philadelphia-based AI and robotics startup Exyn, the Indian conglomerate disclosed in a stock exchange filing on Thursday, making further inroads in startup backings globally.

Reliance Strategic Business Ventures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, has acquired a 23.3% stake in Exyn for $25 million, the Indian firm said.

The Indian firm’s investment is part of a larger $35 million Series B funding of the Philadelphia startup, which operates a robotic autonomy for complex, GPS-denied environments.

The AI startup "commercialises the highest level of aerial drone autonomy in the world, Autonomy Level 4 (AL4.) Exyn’s robots are able to autonomously navigate in previously inaccessible environments without a prior map, existing infrastructure (GPS, communications, etc.), or an operator in the loop," according to a description on its site.

Reliance, which operates India's largest retail chain as well as the top telecom operator in the nation, said it will find synergies with the startup on the Indian conglomerate's initiatives surrounding drone, industrial safety, security and robotics areas, while accelerating "Exyn’s product and technology development across multiple application areas and commercialization."

The startup had a turnover of $4.32 million, $1.83 million and $0.16 million in CY 2021, CY 2020 and CY 2019 respectively, the Indian firm added.

Reliance Industries, or one of its units, has made a series of investments this year, including hyperlocal delivery startup Dunzo and Google-backed Android lockscreen platform Glance.

In March, Reliance Strategic Business Ventures said it planned to invest up to $221 million in U.S. electronics firm Sanmina to set up a joint venture as the Indian giant looks to expand its electronics manufacturing. The joint venture aims to create a “world-class” electronic manufacturing hub in India, the two said.

Earlier on Thursday, Reliance said it had agreed to acquire the India unit of Metro AG for $344 million. Metro, which entered the Indian market nearly two decades ago, operates 31 wholesale distribution centers across the country.

“With our mission of decreasing the amount of injuries and fatalities in ‘physical’ industries gathering data in dangerous environments, having this investment will accelerate Exyn’s impact and growth. With this new capital, we will further expand our worldwide footprint to dramatically improve safety for those working in dangerous environments around the world and keeping them out of harm’s way,” Nader Elm, chief executive of Exyn, said in a statement Friday.

Adnan Syed hired by Georgetown's prison reform initiative


 Adnan Syed, center right, leaves the courthouse after a hearing on Sept. 19, 2022, in Baltimore. Syed, who was released from a Maryland prison this year after his case was the focus of the true-crime podcast “Serial,” has been hired by Georgetown University as a program associate for the university's Prisons and Justice Initiative, the university said Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022. 

(Jerry Jackson/The Baltimore Sun via AP, File)

BRIAN WITTE
Thu, December 22, 2022 


ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Adnan Syed, who was released from a Maryland prison this year after his case was the focus of the true-crime podcast “Serial,” has been hired by Georgetown University as a program associate for the university's Prisons and Justice Initiative, the university said.

Syed started working this month for the initiative, which advocates for others in the criminal legal system, the university tweeted Wednesday.

In his new role, Syed will support Georgetown’s “Making an Exoneree” class, in which students reinvestigate decades-old wrongful convictions, create short documentaries about the cases and work to help bring innocent people home from prison, the university wrote in an online announcement.

“PJI’s team and programming has so much to gain from Adnan’s experience, insight, and commitment to serving incarcerated people and returning citizens,” the organization tweeted.

Syed had been one of 25 incarcerated students at Georgetown's inaugural Bachelor of Liberal Arts program at the Patuxent Institute in Jessup, Maryland, during the year leading up to his release, the university said.

“To go from prison to being a Georgetown student and then to actually be on campus on a pathway to work for Georgetown at the Prisons and Justice Initiative, it’s a full circle moment,” Syed said in the university's announcement. “PJI changed my life. It changed my family’s life. Hopefully I can have the same kind of impact on others.”

Syed, 41, hopes to continue his Georgetown education and eventually go to law school.

After spending 23 years in prison, he walked out of a Baltimore courthouse in September after a judge overturned his conviction for the 1999 murder of high school student Hae Min Lee, Syed’s ex-girlfriend.

Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn ordered his release at the behest of prosecutors who said they had recently uncovered new evidence.

Prosecutors said a reinvestigation of the case revealed evidence regarding the possible involvement of two alternate suspects. The two suspects may have been involved individually or together, the state’s attorney’s office said.

The suspects were known persons at the time of the original investigation and were not properly ruled out nor disclosed to the defense, prosecutors said.

Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby's office also cited new results from DNA testing that was conducted using a more modern technique than when evidence in the case was first tested. The recent testing excluded Syed as a suspect, prosecutors said.

Syed always maintained his innocence. His case captured the attention of millions in 2014 when the debut season of “Serial” focused on Lee’s killing and raised doubts about some of the evidence prosecutors had used. The program shattered podcast-streaming and downloading records.

COPS OUT OF CONTROL

Fatal police shooting of startup founder puts Austin’s diversity issues in the spotlight

Mary Ann Azevedo
Thu, December 22, 2022 

Rajan “Raj” Moonesinghe (right) and his brother Johann Moonesinghe (left) pictured with their cousin (center) WHO HAS NO NAME
 Image Credits: Johann Moonesinghe

For years, Austin has made headlines as an evolving tech hub where startups, large companies and investors alike have flocked to set up a presence.

But as 2022 closes, the Texas capital is in the news for a very different, tragic reason -- being home to the sudden death of a startup founder at the hands of a police officer.

On November 15, inKind co-founder Rajan “Raj” Moonesinghe was fatally shot outside of his south Austin home in what his family and colleagues describe as a senseless accident that could have been avoided.

The 33-year-old had returned from a two-week trip to discover that things looked out of place in his home, according to his brother, Johann. The affluent neighborhood had recently become a target for criminals -- to the point that one homeowner had felt so unsafe after being robbed that she moved out. The new owners proactively hired 24-hour-security to stand guard in front of their house.

A few weeks prior, Moonesinghe had purchased an assault rifle to protect himself should a burglar attempt to enter his home. In what would turn out to be a sadly prophetic warning, his neighbor and inKind COO El Khattary had cautioned, “A brown man with a big gun doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.”

Moonesinghe had reportedly talked earlier with his neighbor across the street, expressing concern that someone might be in his home, and retrieved his rifle as he looked around his property. With his front door open, Moonesinghe yelled for whoever might be in his home to get out. He also shot his rifle into the home. The neighbor’s security guard called 911.

According to Moonesinghe’s brother, Ring camera footage showed police arriving at his brother’s property with no sirens or lights, with one of the officers fatally shooting Raj.

“The police didn’t announce themselves or give him time to put the gun down,” Johann told TechCrunch. (A video of the incident can be seen here. Warning: It may be inappropriate for some viewers.)

The officers said they performed life-saving measures on Raj, before he was ultimately pronounced dead at a local hospital.

It was two days later, though, before Raj’s family knew what happened to him. The police at first held a press conference, saying that “a white man" had been shot but did not disclose details.

“We were super confused,” Johann said. “We knew the cops were there, and we couldn’t get a hold of Raj. At first we thought it was him, and then we thought it wasn’t. They said they killed a white man who had been shooting up the neighborhood. We didn’t know what to think.”

The incident took place at 12:30 am on Tuesday, November 15. But the Moonesinghe family claim they were not notified by police of Raj’s death until the evening of Thursday, November 17.

“Raj was awesome, absolutely phenomenal. He just went out of his way to help other people," Johann told TechCrunch. "This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me and my family. The hardest part for me is that it was avoidable."

"We’re lucky that we have a very strong family, incredible friends and super supportive people around us," he continued. "It's not only hard to lose somebody you love, but it's doubly, triply hard because of the way the police handled it."

TechCrunch reached out to the Austin Police Department (APD) and was referred to a December 1 press release stating the department continued to investigate the shooting.

At the top of the release, Raj was described as a deceased Middle Eastern male. In the body of the release, the APD said the 911 caller had described a man with a gun “as a white male, wearing a grey robe and dark pants.”

In that release, the police department identified Officer Daniel Sanchez as the individual who fatally shot Raj. Sanchez is reportedly on administrative leave pending the department's investigations. In its statement, APD said that it would conduct two concurrent investigations into the incident -- a criminal investigation conducted by the APD Special Investigations Unit in conjunction with the Travis County District Attorney's Office, and an administrative investigation conducted by the APD Internal Affairs Unit, with oversight from the Office of Police Oversight.

After moving to Austin about five years ago, inKind this year leased 22,000 square feet of office space that was Facebook’s first office in Austin. Business is going well, according to Johann. The startup, which launched in 2016 by funding restaurants by purchasing large amounts of food and beverage credits upfront, has raised $27 million in growth equity and $130 million in debt over the past year and has about 74 employees. It’s operating at a $48 million run rate, Johann said.

“What makes me really sad is that startups are very, very hard, and Raj worked so hard for years and years. And now that the company is really on a rocket ship, he’s not here to enjoy that,” he added.

Johann told TechCrunch he also feels “guilty” because of the decision several years ago to move the startup he helped co-found with his brother, Andrew Harris, Matt Saeta and Miles Matthias to Austin from Washington, D.C. An early investor in Uber and Twilio, Johann said he was hoping to relocate to a state without taxes. Seattle and Miami were also considered.

“Obviously the shooting was not my fault,” Johann told TechCrunch. “But I don’t believe this would have happened in another place. I’m gay and brown, grew up in LA, and lived a long time in D.C. The only time I have ever experienced racism was when I moved to Austin.” While the brothers' family is from Sri Lanka, the pair were born in Los Angeles.

Khattary told TechCrunch he views the city's lack of diversity as "a weird thing" considering its so-called progressive reputation, and called police treatment of people of color "disheartening." For example, during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, 19 officers were accused of seriously injuring protestors. Earlier this year, the officers were indicted for using excessive force.

"Clearly, there’s something in Austin and Black Lives Matter in 2020 highlighted a lot of it," he told TechCrunch. "This is a nationwide problem but Austin definitely has more than its fair share. In this case, the officer perceived him [Raj] as a major threat and didn’t give him a chance."

The contrast between the city’s progressiveness and a population that is mostly “very hospitable” and incidents such as this one can be hard for outsiders to grasp, Johann said.

“I don’t think there’s overt racism. It’s more unconscious biases, with people making judgements around others in a split second,” he added. “And that’s really problematic. I do believe that if Raj were white, he probably wouldn't have been killed.”

Austin’s lack of diversity is not a new problem. As TechCrunch reported in March, the percentage of Black residents, for example, steadily decreased over time to an estimated 7% in 2020. An increasing number of Austin’s neighborhoods resemble those seen in Silicon Valley, with largely white and Asian residents and far fewer Hispanic and Black people.

Johann doesn’t want his brother to have died in vain. While he says he currently doesn’t “feel safe” in Austin and that it’s hard for him to consider asking other people to move here, he also knows that they can’t just move inKind.

Instead, he’s hoping to help change Austin “to make it a place that’s safe for everyone.”

“I hope that the Austin police even start the dialogue, give us some answers and explain to us what they’re going to do differently so this doesn’t happen again,” Johann said.

He also wants to potentially raise capital that would go toward specifically investing in companies that through data, improved security cameras and other tech could possibly help prevent what happened to Raj from happening to others.

Criminal defense attorney explains why you should avoid self-checkout lanes: ‘Theft by mistake’

THE REASON HARDWARE STORES HAVE A SHOPLIFTING PROBLEM

Dillon Thompson

Wed, December 21, 2022 

A lawyer is going viral after sharing why she often suggests that shoppers avoid using self-checkout lanes.

Carrie Jernigan (@carriejernigan1), is a criminal defense attorney with more than 1 million followers on TikTok. Much of her page is dedicated to aspects of the legal system that TikTokers may not know about.

In one recent video, Jernigan said that she typically tells people to “steer clear” of self-checkout lanes. The reason? Shoplifters.

Buy, sell or hold? How to decide what to do with a plummeting stock

As Jernigan explains it, she usually sees three kinds of people getting charged with shoplifting after using a self-checkout lane.

The first, she says, are professional shoplifters. The second group, however, are those guilty of what she calls “theft by mistake.” This, according to Jernigan, is where innocent people can get into trouble.

“These are the people that I genuinely think just forgot to scan an item,” she says. “It is usually something that was on the bottom rack of the cart … and when they are walking out, asset protection stops them.”

Jernigan explains that, in the early days of self-checkout, she noticed stores letting people off if they forgot to scan an item.

“They let almost all of these people either scan and pay for the item, or just let them go, but took the item they did not pay for,” she says.

Now, however, stores aren’t as lenient, she says. Jernigan believes this is because shoplifters have become so adept at stealing from self-checkout lanes that stores no longer want to take a gamble on whether a theft was accidental.

“They have lost all sympathy, and they are just taking a ‘Tell it to the judge’ approach,” she adds.

Lastly, Jernigan breaks down the third group. These people, who she calls “the truly innocent,” are usually charged long after the day they bought something.

“It is something that [happens when] asset protection is doing a quality-control check, or inventory that weeks, days, months later comes up short,” she says. “So they will begin watching hours of video.”

These checks, she says, can sometimes result in shoppers getting charged unfairly, simply because they bought one of the items that went missing.

The stakes can quickly get high. Although shoplifting is usually considered a misdemeanor, many states can sentence offenders to a year in prison. If the charge is elevated to a felony, the prison time could be much longer.

Jernigan’s last bit of advice? Don’t pay in cash. As she explains at the end of the clip, that will make it even harder to prove what you did or didn’t buy.

If you’re innocent, Jernigan notes, it’s likely that you’ll eventually be able to present evidence to prove it. However, that comes at the cost of time, money and effort.

“At that point, so much damage has already been done,” she says.

FOR PROFIT SENIOR CARE

This nursing home chain reported the highest COVID death rate. Then it deleted deaths.

Jayme Fraser and Nick Penzenstadler, USA TODAY
Fri, December 23, 202

Federal regulators will review the official tally of COVID-19 deaths at one of the nation’s largest nursing home chains after the company cut its reported death toll by an unprecedented 42% following a USA TODAY investigation.

Presented with USA TODAY’s findings that Trilogy Health Services had the worst death rate among its peers during last winter’s coronavirus surge, company officials said they discovered they had included deaths in their mandatory weekly reports that should not have been counted.

On Thursday, a chief medical officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services called the resulting changes “concerning.”

“CMS takes reports of data inaccuracy very seriously and will hold any bad actors accountable,” Dr. Lee Fleisher, the agency’s director of clinical standards and quality, said in an emailed statement.

The Midwest chain originally reported 772 deaths at 113 facilities from October 2020 through February 2021. The cut of 325 deaths, which the company said is based on federal guidance, drops its reported rate from highest to third-highest among the nation’s 10 largest nursing home chains.

Dying for Care: This nursing home chain stood out for nationally high death rates as pandemic peaked

Even more deaths could be excluded from the official tally for Trilogy, which operates homes in four states: Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio.

Trilogy plans to submit another revision to its data for dozens more weeks beyond those analyzed in USA TODAY’s investigation. Damon Elder, a spokesman for American Healthcare REIT – the real estate investment trust that owns Trilogy facilities and shares in company profits – said Wednesday that he did not know the scale of those additional changes.

The revisions submitted by Trilogy deleted as many deaths as had been removed by a combined 13,500 other facilities. No other chain came close. Most large chains that revised their numbers added deaths, according to a USA TODAY analysis of the data posted on the CMS website.

Map of US
How U.S. nursing homes fared during COVID-19's worst surge
Explore the data


Last week, CMS spokesperson Mark Brager said the agency's policy is to accept revisions to self-reported COVID-19 case data without explanation or review. This week, Fleisher clarified that the agency would review Trilogy’s changes.

Federal rules adjusted for the pandemic allowed facilities to charge a higher rate for people with COVID-19 who were treated at the nursing home instead of being transferred to a hospital.

Asked whether the company’s revised accounting of COVID-19 cases and deaths would be compared to Medicare and Medicaid bills paid by CMS on behalf of residents, Fleisher described “some challenges” but did not specify whether such a review would take place. While COVID-19 tracking data was used to monitor cases and deaths in real time, it did not include the names of people counted, making it difficuilt to match with federal billing records that are tracked in a separate system.

Elder said Trilogy has not been contacted by either CMS or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about its revisions. Since late May 2020, CMS has required facilities to submit weekly reports of new COVID-19 cases and deaths to the National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN), a database run by the CDC.

Explore: When does a nursing home COVID-19 death count? It's complicated.

The government has used the information to award billions of dollars in COVID aid as well as target inspections and identify facilities that might need extra support during outbreaks.

Some academic researchers, who have relied on the data to study how and why COVID-19 has killed more than 140,000 people in nursing homes, called on government officials to step up after learning of Trilogy’s extensive revisions.

David Grabowski, a health care policy professor at Harvard University medical school who studies nursing home performance, called Trilogy’s revisions “suspicious.”

Weekly COVID-19-related deaths in nursing homes

Grabowski said there “should be some consequences” for submitting incorrect data to the national COVID-19 reporting system because of how important the system is to government officials and researchers who use it to understand the pandemic.

“Either they are admitting they submitted bad data or they are going back and altering the data to make themselves look better,” he said. “I don’t like either of those outcomes and both of them speak to the need for increased oversight and accountability.”

Charlene Harrington, who has studied nursing home quality for more than four decades, agreed that CMS should thoroughly investigate.

“I really don't see why CMS would let nursing homes revise their reports without some specific evidence that documents the information,” said the professor emerita at the University of California, San Francisco.

A report from the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which examined the early days of the federal reporting, found the majority of nursing home submissions appeared complete. An updated evaluation is due to be published in September.

Federal regulators “should be asking questions” about significant revisions, such as the one made by Trilogy, said Karen Shen, a Harvard Ph.D. candidate who led a study estimating at least 16,000 people died in nursing homes before mandatory reporting.

Fleisher, the CMS official, said reviews of NHSN submissions are limited by “capacity challenges,” so they typically take place only after the agency receives an inquiry or complaint. It is one reason, he said, “why President Biden’s budget calls on Congress to increase CMS inspection resources by nearly 25%.”

Vince Mor, a professor at the Brown University School of Public Health, said he is concerned that the CDC and CMS do not actively audit or otherwise verify data submitted to the NHSN.

“It is much easier to just blame the incompetency of the facilities reporting,” he said. “It is a miracle that any of the data make any sense at all.”

Another person hoping for government action after Trilogy’s revision: Shana Driver, whose mother died in a Trilogy-owned nursing home in Indiana last winter.

A 103-degree fever suggested and two positive tests confirmed Sue Miller had COVID-19, Driver said, remembering what she learned during conversations with nurses. Two weeks later, the family was approved for final bedside visits inside the COVID-19 ward.

Miller died on Day 4 of their vigil, Dec. 21, 2020, while her son-in-law sat at her bedside playing her favorite Bee Gees songs.

Sue Miller’s death certificate lists COVID-19 pneumonia as the cause of death. Originally, Trilogy reported four deaths that week, all from the pandemic virus. Its revised data shows none.

“I don’t know how they can just erase that,” Driver said. “That just makes me angry. … They are just trying to erase people.”

Elder, the Trilogy spokesman, declined to comment about specific cases. He noted that it was common for deaths or cases to be reported in subsequent weeks rather than the weeks they occurred. Trilogy reported five COVID-19 deaths the week after Miller died. Federal rules require facilities to accurately link cases and deaths to the week they happened.

The revisions were spurred by a first-of-its-kind data analysis by USA TODAY, which identified Trilogy Health Services as reporting COVID-19 death rates twice the national average – 7 per 1,000 residents – during the pandemic’s worst months in nursing homes.

With its revised death numbers, Trilogy ranked No. 3 out of the nation's Top 10 chains –behind the Good Samaritan Society, a nonprofit chain operated by Sanford Health, and Signature HealthCARE, a for-profit chain, USA TODAY found in an updated analysis.

In a written statement, officials from the Good Samaritan Society and Signature HealthCARE did not explain why their average death rates were higher than other large operators, many with facilities in the same states. The companies critiqued the USA TODAY analysis for focusing on the months before vaccines were widely available – when almost half of all COVID-19 nursing home deaths occurred.

“Our nursing homes were dealing with a once-in-a-century pandemic and a virus that disproportionately targets older adults and those with underlying conditions. This is the very population the Good Samaritan Society is called to serve,” President and CEO Nathan Schema wrote.

SignatureHealthCARE’s statement described USA TODAY’s work as part of a “continual barrage of negatively focused media,” detailing the extra expenses the company incurred to provide care during the pandemic and an infection control program launched in early 2021.

“Throughout our ongoing battle and crusade against COVID-19, the long-term care and skilled nursing healthcare sector as a whole has been attacked, and not just by the virus,” read the statement sent by Communications Manager Ann Bowdan Wilder. “Unfortunately, and quite egregiously, our sector has become the maligned focus of media and other high profile, predatory platforms for negative stories, unbalanced reporting, targeted blame, and inflammatory finger pointing.”

Trilogy leaders have disputed USA TODAY’s characterization of the company's facilities compared with its peers, arguing that Trilogy officials had overcounted COVID-19 deaths while many nursing homes undercounted them.

“Reporting practices in several of the states where we operate have recently come under scrutiny, specifically regarding under-reporting of cases and deaths. Therefore, we feel any comparison data with our competitors at this point is unreliable,” Trilogy CEO Leigh Ann Barney said in a video message sent to the “Trilogy family” days before USA TODAY published its findings.

Good Samaritan Society and Signature HealthCARE described their own reporting to the NHSN as complete. Signature operates facilities in some of the same states as Trilogy.

The Indianapolis Star, part of the USA TODAY Network, has extensively reported on deaths at nursing homes in Indiana, including some that state officials said were reported accurately to the federal system but not to the state. The Ohio Health Department similarly audited death reports and found hundreds in nursing homes that had not been counted in its state tally, but it is unclear whether those same deaths had been accurately reported to federal regulators.

Rachel Reeves, a spokesperson for the American Health Care Association, cited the inspector general's audit as proof that facilities, by and large, complied with COVID-19 reporting requirements. That report found 95% of the nation’s more than 15,000 nursing homes completed all required survey fields with no obvious errors, such as wildly unrealistic numbers, although the tallies were not audited.

“Nursing homes come under frequent ‘scrutiny’ as the representative at Trilogy mentions, but that does not necessarily mean underreporting occurred,” wrote Reeves, who represents the largest industry association for nursing homes.

Nursing homes have been the focus of increased inquiry amid the pandemic. One federal OIG report found 1 million of the nation’s 3 million nursing home residents contracted COVID-19 in 2020. The White House is preparing to use its executive authority to tighten industry regulations while some members of Congress say they want to dig into the corporate owners and operators.

'Profiteering, cold-hearted': Nursing home owners should be investigated, congressman says

In a report released last week, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine called for federal officials to expand the government’s tracking and regulation of nursing home companies, highlighting private equity firms and real estate investment trusts as models that should be evaluated.

A majority of Trilogy’s buildings are owned by a real estate investment trust, American Healthcare REIT.

In addition to collecting rent, American Healthcare shares profits from Trilogy's operations – a model allowed under a federal law revised in 2008. The concept was permitted earlier for REITs outside health care to allow them to offer basic services for their properties, such as cleaning. American Healthcare REIT appears to be the first large trust to use RIDEA, or the REIT Investment Diversification and Empowerment Act, in nursing homes.

With complex ownership structures, which often involve a web of related businesses, savvy owners can reduce taxes, shield money from potential lawsuits and route profits up to the top of a corporate chain even as individual facilities report operating in the red. This makes it difficult, experts said, for the federal government to understand how much of its nursing home funding, paid through Medicare and Medicaid claims, actually goes to care as intended.

Contributing: Letitia Stein

Jayme Fraser and Nick Penzenstadler are reporters on the USA TODAY investigations team. Contact Jayme at jfraser@gannett.com, @jaymekfraser on Twitter or on Signal at (541) 362-1393. Nick can be reached at npenz@usatoday.com, @npenzenstadler on Twitter or on Signal at (720) 507-5273.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nursing home COVID deaths: One chain deletes 42% of its death tally

Texas power prices spike more than 400% in one day as bomb cyclone sends energy demand soaring


Brian Evans
Fri, December 23, 2022

Icicles hang off the State Highway 195 sign in Killeen, Texas.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

In some parts of Texas, prices for power to be delivered on Friday evening more than quintupled, topping $500 per megawatt-hour.


On Friday night, temperatures in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio are expected to dip below 20 degrees.


Outage data shows roughly 53,000 Texas residents were experiencing a loss of power on Thursday.

Forecasts for below-freezing temperatures in Texas sent power prices surging more than 400% in the span of just one day.

In some parts of the state, prices for power to be delivered on Friday evening more than quintupled from the prior day, topping $500 per megawatt-hour, according to Bloomberg.

On Friday night, temperatures in Dallas, Austin and San Antonio are expected to dip below 20 degrees. Meanwhile, Houston will reach the low 20s, and even south Texas will be in the mid 20s.

Current expectations project electricity usage will climb to 70.9 gigawatts on Friday, according to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, surpassing the previous record of 69.8 gigawatts. Put into context, one gigawatt is enough energy to power roughly 200,000 homes.

The cold spell is a callback to February of 2021, when a power grid meltdown killed 200 people in the state while outages forced some Texans to burn furniture in their fireplaces to stay warm.

Officials remain confident that the power grid can handle the increased demand. But the grid has already come under strain. Outage data showed roughly 53,000 Texas residents were experiencing a loss of power on Thursday night.

State regulators have taken steps to winterize the necessary equipment to prepare for the freezing weather, although some critics argue more is needed to prepare the state's power grid.

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard file responses to the FTC's antitrust lawsuit

The companies stated their case for why Microsoft should be allowed to buy Activision for $68.7 billion.


Anadolu Agency via Getty Images


Kris Holt
·Contributing Reporter
Fri, December 23, 2022 


Microsoft has filed a formal response to a Federal Trade Commission antitrust lawsuit that seeks to block it from buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion. It pushed back against the agency's claims that the takeover would harm competition in the gaming industry. The company argued that consumers would benefit. "The commission cannot meet its burden of showing that the transaction would leave consumers worse off, because the transaction will allow consumers to play Activision’s games on new platforms and access them in new and more affordable ways," Microsoft wrote.

The FTC asserted earlier this month that, should the deal close, it "would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business." The agency pointed to Microsoft making some titles from Bethesda (whose parent company ZeniMax it bought last year) exclusive to its own platforms.

In the filing, Microsoft acknowledged that it planned to make three future Bethesda titles exclusive to Xbox and PC. The names of those games were redacted, but Starfield and Redfall will only be available on Xbox, PC and Xbox Cloud Gaming, while the FTC claimed in its complaint that Microsoft plans to make Elder Scrolls VI an exclusive as well.

One of the major sticking points about the deal is the future of Call of Duty. In an attempt to appease regulators, Microsoft has pledged to keep Call of Duty on competitors' platforms for at least 10 years if the acquisition closes, and to bring the blockbuster franchise to Nintendo consoles. Sony hasn't taken Microsoft up on that deal, however.

"The acquisition of a single game by the third-place console manufacturer cannot upend a highly competitive industry. That is particularly so when the manufacturer has made clear it will not withhold the game," Microsoft wrote. "The fact that Xbox’s dominant competitor has thus far refused to accept Xbox’s proposal does not justify blocking a transaction that will benefit consumers."

Microsoft and Activision Blizzard both claim that keeping Call of Duty away from other platforms wouldn't make sense. Activision said in its own filing that making the franchise exclusive "would be disastrous for Xbox," as it would lose billions in game sales and give up "a massive portion of the gamers that Activision has worked so hard to attract and retain." It added that "in a world with nearly unlimited gaming alternatives, making Call of Duty exclusive is not a plausible outcome."

Both companies took issue with the FTC, with Microsoft claiming that its procedures are unconstitutional. "The structure of these administrative proceedings, in which the commission both initiates and finally adjudicates the complaint against Microsoft, violates Microsoft's Fifth Amendment Due Process right to adjudication before a neutral arbiter," Microsoft said in reference to the agency's decision to file the complaint in its own administrative court, rather than in a federal one. The company also argued that hearing the case in the FTC's administrative court "violates Article III of the US Constitution and the separation of powers."

Activision asserted that by disregarding the supposed benefits to consumers and focusing "on supposed harms to Xbox's deep-pocketed competitors," the FTC was straying from the "underlying purpose" of antitrust laws to protect competition instead of competitors. It said the agency was "blinded by ideological skepticism of high-value technology deals and by complaints from competitors" and that it "lost sight of the realities of the intensely competitive gaming industry."

Nevertheless, Microsoft wants to agree on conditions with the FTC and other regulators that will lead to them rubberstamping the deal. “Even with confidence in our case, we remain committed to creative solutions with regulators that will protect competition, consumers and workers in the tech sector. As we’ve learned from our lawsuits in the past, the door never closes on the opportunity to find an agreement that can benefit everyone,” Microsoft president and vice chair Brad Smith said.

"There is no sensible, legitimate reason for our transaction to be prevented from closing. Our industry has enormous competition and few barriers to entry. We have seen more devices than ever before enabling players a wide range of choices to play games," Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said in a statement to Engadget. "Engines and tools are freely available to developers large and small. The breadth of distribution options for games has never been more widespread. We believe we will prevail on the merits of the case.”

The deadline for the acquisition to close is in July. If it hasn't done so by then, Microsoft and Activision will need to renegotiate the deal or abandon it — Microsoft would then face a breakup fee of as much as $3 billion. As Axios notes, though, the FTC's antitrust case is set to go before its administrative court on August 2nd. In the meantime, the agency could still seek a preliminary injunction in federal court to stop the deal from closing.

The proposed acquisition is also facing scrutiny from regulators in the UK and the European Union. The jurisdictions' respective competition agencies are expected to issue rulings on the deal in the first half of 2023.

Microsoft's Response to the FTC's Antitrust Lawsuit by Kris Holt on Scribd

Activision Blizzard's Formal Response to the FTC's Antitrust Lawsuit by Kris Holt on Scribd

Robocall company may receive the largest FCC fine ever

'The largest robocall operation' ever faces a $300 million penalty.




Steve Dent
·Reporter
Thu, December 22, 2022 

The FCC has proposed a $299,997,000 fine against "the largest robocall firm" it has ever investigated, the regulator announced. It would be the FCC's largest fine ever, and targets a firm that made over 5 billion calls in three months, enough "to have called each person in the United States 15 times," it wrote.

The operation is run by Roy Cox, Jr. and Michael Aaron Jones via their Sumco Panama company, along with other domestic and foreign entities. In July of this year, the FCC issued its first ever "K4 Notice" and "N2 Order" directing all US telephone providers to stop carrying traffic related to the car warranty scam calls. "This resulted in a massive, 99 percent drop in the volume of such calls since June, according to [spam blocking app] RoboKiller," the FCC wrote.

The FCC proposed its largest-ever fine because it found the robocallers met the criteria for "egregious violations." Consumers described the calls as "incessant" and "harassment," and the robocallers used dirty practices like calling health care workers from spoofed hospital numbers. The firm also violated multiple FCC rules, like failing to identify the caller at the start of a message.

In the calls, a message would open with something like "we've been trying to reach you concerning your car's extended warranty," and prompt you to speak to a scam "warranty specialist." Robokiller advises users to avoid the calls in the first place if possible, not follow prompts, and above all, never provide personal information like banking details.

FCC proposes largest robocaller fine in history



Zach Schonfeld
Thu, December 22, 2022 


The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday proposed a record-breaking fine of nearly $300 million for an alleged robocall scheme that involved billions of calls about auto warranties.

The agency said its proposed $299.997 million fine follows the largest robocall operation the FCC has ever investigated, alleging Roy Cox Jr., and Michael Aaron Jones made more than 5 billion robocalls designed to sell vehicle service contracts deceptively marketed as car warranties.

“Maybe it happened to you this last year,” FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement. “You picked up the phone and someone you don’t know, who you didn’t ask to call, tells you they have been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty. It’s a scam.”

The commission claimed the two individuals, through their Sumco Panama company, violated federal anti-robocalling and spoofing laws.


The pair allegedly began making the calls as early as 2018, placing 5.19 billion calls to 550 million phone numbers between January 2021 and March 2021.

The individuals allegedly spoofed the phone numbers of hospitals for some of the calls, which were placed during the pandemic, leading confused people to call the hospitals to complain. Other alleged calls originated from foreign entities but were spoofed to make the caller ID appear local to the U.S.

“The calls then misrepresented the product or service being offered and made false or misleading statements to induce call recipients to purchase goods or services,” the FCC said.

Cox and Jones could not be reached for comment.

The FCC said it took initial action against the operation in July by directing U.S.-based voice service providers to stop carrying traffic related to the auto warranty scam calls, an action the agency said led to a massive drop in volume.

“We will be relentless in pursing the groups behind these schemes by limiting their access to U.S. communications networks and holding them to account for their conduct,” FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan Egal said in a statement.


U.S. FCC proposes record $300 million fine for 'auto warranty' robocalls



Wed, December 21, 2022 
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Wednesday proposed a $300 million fine against an auto warranty robocall campaign, the largest-ever penalty proposed by the agency over unwanted calls.

The FCC said that in the scheme run by two California men, Roy Cox, Jr. and Michael Aaron Jones via their Sumco Panama company and other entities, more than 5 billion apparently illegal robocalls were made to more than half a billion phone numbers during a three-month span in 2021 "using pre-recorded voice calls to press consumers to speak to a 'warranty specialist' about extending or reinstating their car’s warranty."

A lawyer for Cox did not immediately comment. A lawyer for Jones could not immediately be identified.

"We will be relentless in pursing the groups behind these schemes by limiting their access to U.S. communications networks and holding them to account for their conduct," said FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Loyaan A. Egal.

It was the latest government action targeting the robocall operation.

In July, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost sued Cox and Jones and others alleging they orchestrated an "unlawful and complex robocall scheme, at times besieging consumers with more than 77 million robocalls a day to generate sales leads" -- often for fraudulent auto warranty extensions. Cox denied the allegations in a court filing.

The FCC noted that under a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) actions both Jones and Cox are prohibited from making telemarketing calls.

In 2017, a U.S. judge in California approved default judgments against Jones and nine companies the FTC charged with "running an operation that blasted consumers with billions of illegal telemarketing robocalls."

The court permanently banned Jones and the companies from all telemarketing activities and imposed a $2.7 million penalty.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Mark Porter and David Gregorio)

BOOM GO BUST

CarMax’s Woes Renew Concerns About Shaky Used-Vehicle Market




Ed Ludlow
Thu, December 22, 2022 

(Bloomberg) -- CarMax Inc. stumbled through another difficult quarter, dragging down stocks across the automotive industry and deepening concerns over the unsteady US used-car market

The auto dealer cited high inflation and low buyer confidence among the factors that are cooling the once-hot sector. CarMax on Thursday reported third-quarter earnings and sales that fell well short of Wall Street’s already depressed expectations.

“Vehicle affordability remains challenging due to macro factors stemming from broad inflation, climbing interest rates and continued low consumer confidence,” Chief Executive Officer Bill Nash said on a conference call with analysts. The latest results “reflect the continuation of widespread pressures across the used-car industry.”

CarMax shares fell 7.2% at 10:56 a.m. in New York after an earlier decline of 12%, the biggest intraday drop since Sept. 29. That dragged down peers such as Carvana Co., which tumbled 9.7%, as well as auto manufacturers, with Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co. and Stellantis NV each sliding more than 3%.

The issues stoke concerns over the used-vehicle market, after prices soared early in the pandemic while supply-chain snags stalled new-car production. This year, they’ve been ratcheting down rapidly as shortages eased and buyers balked at high sticker prices.

Carvana has been hit by the same pressures, forcing the online automobile seller to explore ways to rework its debt amid solvency concerns. It also has heightened concerns about a spillover into the broader car market, something AutoNation Inc., the largest new-car dealer chain in the US, has warned about.

CarMax on Thursday reported adjusted profit of 24 cents a share in the fiscal third quarter, significantly below the 65-cent average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Net sales in the period were $6.5 billion, the Richmond, Virginia-based company said in a statement, also missing analysts’ projections.

What Bloomberg Intelligence Says:

“A gradual backslide in elevated used-vehicle values hasn’t prevented consumers from heading for the exits, prompting a precipitous drop in unit volume for CarMax and motivating a shift toward older vehicles.”

— Kevin Tynan, transportation analyst

It was a “challenging quarter across the board,” Steven Shemesh, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said in a note. “Between a deteriorating macro backdrop and cost-cutting initiatives the near-term is likely to remain volatile.”

The results echo those from the prior quarter, when Nash warned that consumers had shifted their spending away from large purchases amid challenges around affordability. The company’s second-quarter profit miss also weighed on peers and dragged the broader market.

Combined wholesale and retail units sales in the third quarter fell almost 28% year-on-year. Wholesale volumes were hit by CarMax’s move to shift some units to its retail stores to meet consumer demand for low-priced cars.

Wholesale vehicle gross profit tumbled 46% as the per-unit measure was hurt by a “steep market depreciation,” CarMax said.

--With assistance from Sean O'Kane.

Trump Asked About Troops to Quell Racial Protests, Esper Told Jan. 6 Panel



Billy House
Thu, December 22, 2022

(Bloomberg) -- Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper testified that he and others had to dissuade then-President Donald Trump from using active-duty military troops to quell the racial protests breaking out in the summer of 2020.

Trump was upset about the civil unrest around the country in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota, believing it made the US look weak, Esper said, according to a transcript of his April 1, 2022 deposition by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.

The committee has been releasing transcripts of some of its interviews in batches this week and plans to release more in coming days. It is also expected to release its final report on what it learned over a probe that took a year and a half and included interviews with more than 1,000 people.

Esper, a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point, was named secretary of the army in 2017 and acting defense secretary in 2019. He left the administration the next year.

Esper said he and other top officials, including then Attorney General William Barr, were able to convince Trump there was no adequate predicate for the potential use of the military, including in response to tensions in Lafayette Park across from the White House.

Trump never seemed to have “embraced” the concept that the military should have a secondary role, particularly, for domestic disturbances, he said. “I don’t think he ever embraced it because we would, at subsequent meetings, come back with his inclination to use, again, the military first, the Guard later.”

In another transcript released Thursday, an Ohio carpenter who entered the Capitol with the mob on Jan. 6 said he wished the president had told the crowd to go home earlier than he did — hours after it had broken into the building to try and prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s win.

Stephen Ayres, who pleaded guilty to entering the building, blamed Trump’s “fiery tweets” for stoking the passions of the crowd that day that led to the riot in the Capitol. “It probably helped build and added fuel to that fire,” he said.

--With assistance from Bill Allison, William Turton, Mike Dorning and Erik Larson.