Spacewalkers continue International Space Station power upgrade

William Harwood
Thu, December 22, 2022

Astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio spent seven hours outside the International Space Station Thursday, successfully installing a fourth set of roll-out solar array blankets in an ongoing $103 million power system upgrade.

"Outstanding job today," radioed Nick Hague from mission control. "You made it look easy and routine ... You've got a lot of people who are very glad they're holiday plans are still secure!"

"We're incredibly happy that that's the case," said Rubio, laughing, back inside the space station airlock.

Joked Cassada: "Frank and I are going to put in for some leave."

Josh Cassada, left, and Frank Rubio prepare rolled-up solar array blankets for installation aboard the International Space Station as the lab complex approach the southwest coast of Africa. / Credit: NASA TV

Senior station managers, meanwhile, said Russia is holding open the possibility of launching a replacement Soyuz crew ferry ship to replace a virtually identical craft now docked at the station that suffered a major coolant leak last week.

But a final decision is not expected until engineers complete their analysis of a small hole in the Soyuz MS-22/68S spacecraft. The damage and subsequent coolant leak apparently were caused by a micrometeoroid or space debris impact last week that ruptured a radiator coolant line.

If engineers conclude the damaged Soyuz cannot safely carry its three-man crew back to Earth as planned in late March, a Soyuz scheduled to carry their replacements to the space station could be moved up a few weeks and launched without a crew on board. The damaged Soyuz would make an unpiloted return to Earth for additional analysis.

Under that scenario, it's not clear when Soyuz MS-22/68S commander Sergey Prokopyev, Dmitri Petelin and NASA astronaut Frank Rubio would come home, or when their replacements might be launched.

Back aboard the ISS, Cassada and Rubio switched their spacesuits to battery power at 8:19 a.m. EST Thursday, officially kicking off the 257th spacewalk devoted to station assembly and maintenance, and the 12th this year.

The goal of the excursion was to install the second of two ISS Roll-Out Solar Array blankets — IROSAs — that were carried to the space station aboard a SpaceX Dragon cargo ship on Nov. 22.

The station is equipped with four huge rotating solar wings, two on each end of a truss stretching the length of a football field. Each of the four wings is made up of two sets of solar cells extending in opposite directions from a central hub.

The new ISS Roll-Out Solar Array (IROSA) blankets unroll after installation, extending in front of an original-equipment array in the background. The new IROSA blankets are smaller than the space station's original solar wings, but they are more efficient and will eventually generate an additional 120 kilowatts of power. / Credit: NASA TV

The eight sets of blankets deliver electricity to eight main circuits, or power channels, during daylight to operate the lab's systems and to recharge batteries. The stored battery power is used when the station is in orbital darkness.

The power system needs an upgrade because the first set of original-equipment blankets, located on the left end of the station's power truss, have been in space for more than 20 years. Subsequent wings were added in 2006, 2007 and 2009.

All of them have suffered degradation from years in the harsh space environment, and they do not generate as much power as they did when they were new. In a major upgrade, NASA is installing the smaller but more-powerful IROSA blankets to augment the output of the original-equipment blankets.

The first two IROSA blankets were installed on the left-side outboard arrays — the oldest set on the station — during spacewalks in 2021. Cassada and Rubio carried out two earlier spacewalks to install mounting brackets, and one of the two new IROSAs on a right-side inboard wing to augment power channel 3A.

During Thursday's excursion, the second new IROSA was attached to an inboard left-side array to boost power channel 4A. A final set of IROSAs are scheduled for delivery to the station next year.

The IROSA blankets are about half the size of the original arrays, but they are more efficient and will eventually generate an additional 120 kilowatts of power. They were designed to be mounted on brackets at the base of an existing wing, extending outward at a 10-degree angle to minimize the shade they cast on the array below.

Once all six roll-out arrays are installed, overall power generation will be boosted between 20 and 30 percent, roughly matching the output of the original arrays when they were new.

Even Recession Fears Cannot Push Athleisure Out Of Style

Upwallstreet
Thu, December 22, 2022 


Nike (NYSE: NKE) shares rose after quarterly earnings showed buoyant North America sales. Despite heavy discounting due to excessive inventory hitting profit margins and causing flat profits on higher sales, the US athleisure company topped estimates. Its European’s peers also gained from Nike's good news, with Puma (PTC: PUMSY) and adidas AG (OTC: ADDYY) both rising roughly 6 per cent in Frankfurt, while JD.com Inc. (NASDAQ: JD) jumped 8 per cent in London.

Nike did it again, despite a challenging environment

With high consumer demand that drove a strong business momentum in a dynamic environment, Nike’s management stayed focus on what it can control. Although inventories rose 43% compared to last year, they declined from the previous quarter. For the quarter that ended on November 30th, revenues rose 17 percent to $13.3 billion while profits remained flat compared to the year ago period, amounting to $1.3 billion.

Direct sales amounted to $5.4 billion, rising 16 percent for the quarter, with digital sales also rising 25 percent due to record growth in the brand’s digital membership platform.

Gross margin declined compared with the prior quarter due to higher markdowns, especially in North America with profit margins also pressured by higher marketing, logistics and freight costs.

As for China that was shaped by COVID-19 restrictions, sales did drop 3 percent but, it is still a far more gentle drop compared to prior quarter’s 16%.

The success secret

Chief Financial Officer Matthew Friend explained that the challenging market conditions were offset by strong demand, especially in North America where revenue rose 30% from last year’s comparable period. Nike’s strategy of shifting its sales directly to consumers and becoming a ‘direct-to-consumer’ brand is undoubtedly working.

New (streaming) horizons

As of December 30th, Netflix will start streaming Nike Training Club classes, taking a page from Peloton’s (NASDAQ: PTON). Nike Training Club is the company's fitness app that hosts videos of strength, yoga, and high-intensity interval training. By including Nike's speciality content, Netflix made a smart move to lure exercisers stay on their platform while doing fitness and Nike only continued expanding its already impressive global presence, something it is well known for and that many find to be one of the secrets behind its success.

Despite costs squeezing margins, Nike now sees its revenue growing for the full fiscal year. Like many other times throughout its history, Nike again showed it why it deserves its market leader title, year after year.

Brookfield Unit’s Rough Start Looks Like an Opportunity to Goldman


Derek Decloet
Thu, December 22, 2022 






(Bloomberg) -- Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. has had a bumpy start as a standalone public company. That may represent an opportunity for investors, according to some Wall Street analysts who are picking up coverage of the firm.

Brookfield Asset has dropped roughly 13% since it began trading in New York on Dec. 12. It was spun out from its parent, now called Brookfield Corp., to create a investment-management company that intends to pay out the vast majority of its earnings in dividends.

The Canadian firm runs about $400 billion in private funds and other investment strategies, making it the world’s No. 2 alternative asset manager. Its funds have a strong tilt toward credit, infrastructure and hard assets and an aggressive growth target — $1 trillion in assets by 2027.

“They kind of are in the best place to be right now,” Goldman Sachs analyst Alex Blostein said in a phone interview. “Within private markets, the two things that really resonate today are credit and infrastructure. And then within infrastructure, there’s a tremendous amount of focus on clean energy.”

The goal of the spinoff is to get a higher multiple for the fund-management business then when it was embedded in a conglomerate. It should trade at around 20 times earnings or more, Blostein said, based on the valuations of peers including Blackstone Inc. and Ares Management Corp.

Goldman rates Brookfield Asset a buy with a $40 price target; that would imply 42% upside from Wednesday’s close of $28.20. The average price target of analysts tracked by Bloomberg is $34.35 with five rating it a buy and four saying hold. None recommend selling the stock.

Brookfield is counting on credit to drive much of its growth after it acquired Howard Marks’s Oaktree Capital Group three years ago and expanded its insurance business. Brookfield’s real estate funds and private-equity group may become relatively less important to the overall business, according to a company presentation.

Some of the asset growth may come through acquisitions, Chief Executive Officer Bruce Flatt suggested at a Goldman conference earlier this month. Having its own stock will make it easier for the asset manager to make deals, “if opportunities come along that we think are as good as what we have,” said Flatt, who’s also CEO of Brookfield Corp.

There are, however, a few hurdles to cross on the way to $1 trillion. In the short term, higher interest rates may be one of the biggest.

Toronto-based Brookfield has thrived as it built up an investment track record that attracted heaps of capital from large pension and sovereign wealth funds seeking stable, cash-producing assets like utilities and toll roads as an alternative to bonds. The sharp rise in government yields has taken the shine off such alternative strategies.

“BAM benefited significantly and grew massively in very large part, in our opinion, due to ever declining interest rates that enabled them to attract more and more capital,” said Dimitry Khmelnitsky, head of accounting and special situations at Toronto-based Veritas Investment Research Corp.

Khmelnitsky sees rates as a bigger problem for alternative asset managers like Brookfield than most investors are factoring in. All of Brookfield Corp.’s publicly traded divisions have underperformed the S&P 500 in this year’s rate-driven equity selloff.

As a result, the analyst thinks Brookfield Asset Management should trade at a more modest valuation of 15 times earnings — which, he adds, is not far off from the multiple that Brookfield paid to acquire Oaktree in 2019.

Other analysts don’t see rates as a major roadblock for Brookfield, especially given that it’s not that reliant on private equity, where a shortage of debt financing has slowed down dealmaking.

“If we look on a longer time frame, rates aren’t really that high in a historical context,” Credit Suisse analyst Andrew Kuske said. Brookfield Asset “is a very large business and has very good momentum on a number of fronts — on fundraising, deployments, client reach.”

Hertz Rent-a-Car Company Faces Another Scandal

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that it received "information" on Hertz.

 

VERONIKA BONDARENKO
DEC 21, 2022 3:

Car-rental company Hertz (HTZZW) is once again in hot water after a year of navigating a false theft report lawsuit, rising car prices and recalls and a changing post-pandemic driving landscape.

This year has seen several large-scale recalls of many popular car models. In December, General Motors (GM) - Get Free Report recalled more than 740,000 cars over issues with daytime running lights. Tesla (TSLA) - Get Free Report recalled over 1.1 million cars in September over window closures while reports of car fires prompted Ford (F) - Get Free Report to recall nearly half a million cars in the same year.

These are just some examples of the many more widespread auto recalls at a time when a global semiconductor shortage and supply chain disruption is already limiting the number of new cars leaving factories. Some estimates found that global carmarkers produced 8 million fewer cars than planned in 2022.

'Without Having Performed Required Safety Recalls'

While this has sent the price of both new and used cars skyrocketing, it is still not a reason to forgo safety. In a filing published on Tuesday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) announced that it was investigating whether Hertz had still rented cars that had been subject to safety recalls.

"NHTSA is in receipt of information that indicates Hertz rented vehicles to customers without having performed required recall repairs," the agency said in a public filing. "Accordingly, we are opening this audit query to seek additional information concerning this issue."

Individual owners of recalled cars are customarily given time to replace them free-of-charge but not everyone performs this in a timely fashion. For a car rental company, this could also take away from a given car's availability while it is being replaced.

NHTSA said that the investigation concerns recalls over latches and locks on Ford Explorer and Nissan Altima (NSANF) cars that Hertz owned between 2018 and 2020. The investigation is currently looking for "additional information concerning this issue" to determine Hertz did anything wrong.

"The Safety Act requires, among other things, that a rental company shall not rent a vehicle subject to a safety recall unless the recall remedy has been performed," NHTSA said in reference to a 2015 law for rental companies with over 35 vehicles.

Hertz told TheStreet that it was "looking forward to working with NHTSA on the review."

"We take the safety of our customers seriously and manage the Hertz fleet of approximately 500,000 cars around the world with that as our principal objective," a company spokesperson said. "Our policies require us to remove from our rentable fleet vehicles that are under a safety recall, consistent with applicable law."

SEC Intensifies Check On Auditors' Report On Crypto After FTX Collapse

Anusuya Lahiri
Thu, December 22, 2022 


The SEC ramped up scrutiny of audit firms' service to cryptocurrency companies, fearing unscrupulous audit reports misleading investors.

The SEC warned investors against some claims from crypto companies, Paul Munter, the SEC's acting chief accountant, said in an interview.

The increased scrutiny has led at least one audit firm to drop crypto clients, in some cases soon after producing reports on the companies' assets and liabilities, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Many of these companies were closely held or based offshore, helping them evade regulatory actions.

The SEC is particularly worried about so-called proof-of-reserves reports, which aim to show that the crypto company has sufficient assets to cover customers' funds.

In December, leading crypto exchange Binance showcased its "audited proof of reserves," independently verified by audit firm Mazars.

However, the report contained sparse financial information, and Mazars did not express an opinion.

A report for exchange Crypto.com this month did not disclose the nominal amounts of assets and liabilities, citing confidentiality reasons. The same Mazars partner in South Africa signed off on both the Crypto.com and Binance reports.

Such a report "is not enough information for an investor to assess whether the company has sufficient assets to cover its liabilities," Munter added.

Mazars last week paused doing proof-of-reserves crypto work and pulled copies of the reports from its website.

Other audit firms, including Marcum LLP and BDO, also reevaluated their work for crypto companies, fearing lawsuits, reputational damage, and heightened regulatory scrutiny.

The high-profile scrutiny of FTX's external auditors after the crypto exchange filed for bankruptcy disclosed the risks of signing off on unreliable numbers.

Amplify Transformational Data Sharing ETF (NYSE: BLOK) traded lower by 0.97% at $15.29 in the premarket on the last check Thursday.

The SEC’s Crypto Crackdown Is Just Getting Started After FTX Blowup

Allyson Versprille
Thu, December 22, 2022 

The SEC’s Crypto Crackdown Is Just Getting Started After FTX Blowup


(Bloomberg) -- The US Securities and Exchange Commission is just getting started with its crackdown on crypto firms that refuse to abide by its rules.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in an interview on Thursday that the agency’s patience is wearing thin for digital-asset exchanges and other firms that shirk its regulations. Just hours earlier, the watchdog - which had already filed a lawsuit against FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried — sued two more prominent crypto executives for their alleged roles in the collapse of the digital-asset exchange.

“The runway is getting shorter” to start following rules and register with the agency, said Gensler. “The casinos in this Wild West are non-compliant intermediaries,” he added.

Although he declined to identify firms facing scrutiny, or comment on where the FTX probe may go next, Gensler warned about a number of practices that are rampant in the industry.

Over the past year and a half, the SEC chief has argued that most tokens are really just unregistered securities trading on the blockchain. He says they must follow the agency’s tough trading and investment rules.

Client Funds

Gensler chided platforms for not walling off the different parts of their business, such as custody and market-making functions. He also said client funds often aren’t being properly segregated — a problem that’s gained a lot of attention following the failure of FTX.

The SEC has accused former FTX chief executive officer Bankman-Fried and two of his former top associates — Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang — of participating in a multi-year scheme to defraud investors by falsely touting the exchange as a safe platform, while at the same time diverting customer funds to trading firm Alameda Research and concealing other risks and problems.

On Thursday, Gensler also took issue with so-called proof-of-reserves reports, which some crypto firms publish to prove they have enough funds on hand to back customer deposits. Gensler said the practice, which has been used by major crypto firms including Binance Holdings Ltd., falls short of the disclosures needed to protect investors.

“Proof of reserves is neither a full accounting of the assets and liability of a company, nor does it satisfy segregation of customer funds under the securities laws,” Gensler said.

More broadly, the SEC chief signaled that regulators remain focused on crypto firms’ financial record keeping.

“There are some in this field that have talked about ways to give customers confidence that their crypto is really there,” Gensler said, without referencing any specific firm. “They should do that by coming into compliance with time-tested custody, segregation of customer funds rules and accounting rules.”

Self-Driving Truck Company TuSimple Axed Close To 350 Employees As Macro Uncertainties Weigh

Anusuya Lahiri
Thu, December 22, 2022

Autonomous driving technology company TuSimple Holdings Inc (NASDAQ: TSP) disclosed a restructuring plan to consolidate its position as a leader in the autonomous trucking industry.

The restructuring plan involves a 25% reduction of TuSimple's total workforce, equivalent to 350 employees.

About 80% of the remaining 1,100 staff are in research and development.

Also Read: TuSimple Fires Its CEO And Chair Following Internal Investigation, Draws Regulatory Scrutiny

The layoffs followed the termination of TuSimple and Navistar's deal to co-develop purpose-built autonomous semi trucks, TechCrunch reports.

TuSimple plans to actively work with crucial shipping partners and scale back freight expansion, including unprofitable freight lanes and respective trucking operations.

There was a one-time restructuring charge of $10 million - $11 million, with the majority recognized in the fourth quarter of 2022 and paid in the first quarter of 2023.

The compensation-related restructuring savings will likely be $55 million - $65 million annually.

"I returned to TuSimple as CEO to help address a number of challenges and set the Company up for long-term success. This required evaluating our entire workforce and making tough decisions. It's no secret that the current economic environment is difficult," – Cheng Lu, TuSimple President and CEO.

TuSimple had named three independent directors to the board, reconstituted its board committees, and stabilized the management team, including naming its interim CFO, Eric Tapia, as permanent CFO.

Reportedly, TuSimple looked to downsize 50% of its workforce, affecting 700 employees.

Price Action: TSP shares closed lower by 5.96% at $1.42 on Wednesday.

Self-driving truck company TuSimple to lay off 25% of workforce

Rebecca Bellan
Wed, December 21, 2022


Update: CEO Cheng Lu said laid off workers will remain on the payroll for two months and will receive severance.

Well, we knew it was coming. Self-driving trucking technology company TuSimple confirmed Wednesday it plans to lay off 25% of its total workforce as part of a broader restructuring plan designed to keep the company running.

The layoffs come a couple of weeks after TuSimple and Navistar ended their deal to co-develop purpose-built autonomous semi trucks. The staff reductions, which we estimate to affect around 350 workers, also follow a rough year for the company, including a series of executive shakeups, multiple federal investigations, a truck crash and a plummeting stock price. Like many other companies exploring pioneer technology, TuSimple has struggled to make up enough revenue to cover its cash burn.

"It's no secret that the current economic environment is difficult. We must be prudent with our capital and operate as efficiently as possible," said Cheng Lu, TuSimple's president and CEO, in a statement. Lu recently re-joined the company as CEO after he was ousted earlier this year. His predecessor and TuSimple’s founder Xiaodi Hou was fired following an internal probe that showed certain employees having ties and sharing confidential information with Hydron, a China-backed hydrogen-powered trucking company.

"While I deeply regret the impact this has on those affected, I believe it is a necessary step as TuSimple continues down our path to commercialization. This is part of our overall strategy to prioritize investments that bring the most value to shareholders, and position TuSimple as a customer-focused, product-driven organization."

TuSimple is in the process of selling off its Asia-focused business, so the layoffs are only affecting staff in the U.S. TuSimple has workers in San Diego, Arizona and Texas. It's not yet clear which teams were affected or if the layoffs will hit a specific region, although one deep perception engineer in Los Angeles has already posted on LinkedIn about being cut. About 80% of the remaining staff are in research and development and are responsible for working in hardware and software resilience, reliability, safety and information security, TuSimple said in a statement.

The company is scaling back freight expansion, including unprofitable freight lanes and respective trucking operations that still rely on previous generations of autonomous software, which TuSimple says provides limited value to its ongoing technology development.

The focus now is on validating and commercializing its autonomous trucking technology by working with shipping partners, the company said. TuSimple had previously received around 7,000 reservations for its Navistar trucks with customers like DHL Supply Chain, Schneider and U.S. Xpress. It's not clear if any of those partnerships remain, or if TuSimple will have to shop around again. A source familiar with the matter recently told TechCrunch TuSimple would find another truck-maker to work with in the future.

The restructure will cost TuSimple about $10 million to $11 million, a line item that'll show up on Q4's balance sheet and be paid in the first quarter of 2023. TuSimple estimates it'll save $55 million to $65 million on an annual basis as a result of the layoffs and restructuring.

At the time of publishing, TuSimple is trading at $1.42, which is down nearly 6% today and 96% year-to-date.

Employees will remain on the payroll for two months, as required under the WARN Act, and TuSimple plans to offer severance on top of that, Lu told TechCrunch.

Bankrupt miner Core Scientific may sell facilities under development: report

Core Scientific, one of the world’s largest publicly-listed Bitcoin miners, said it may sell some of its mining facilities under development that could be worth up to a gigawatt of power after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, The Block reported, citing the firm’s chief mining officer.

See related article: U.S. crypto miner Core Scientific files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, continues to mine Bitcoin

Fast facts

• The U.S.-based miner said that it will only consider selling facilities under development that were planned to go online in 2023. It doesn’t plan to sell existing mining sites that are worth up to 850 megawatts, according to The Block’s report.

• A Core Scientific spokesperson has confirmed the report with Forkast.

• The Nasdaq-listed mining company’s shares closed down 75.53% to US$0.051 on Wednesday, a significant drop from US$11.34 a year ago.

• Core Scientific’s liquidity crisis comes as low Bitcoin prices and high electricity costs continue to damage Bitcoin miners’ profits.

• The company said in a statement on Wednesday that it will “continue to operate its existing self-mining and hosting operations, which remain significantly cash flow positive on a debt-free basis.”

• In October, Core Scientific warned that it expected to run out of cash resources by the end of this year.

• Earlier this week, another troubled U.S.-based miner Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc. entered a debt restructuring agreement with NYDIG, a cryptocurrency service provider to which Greenidge owes US$74 million.

• Last month, mining firm Foundry Digital LLC said that it plans to acquire two turnkey mining facilities from embattled miner Compute North.

Core Scientific Declares Bankruptcy as Crypto Winter Lingers

Carly Wanna and David Pan
Wed, December 21, 2022 


(Bloomberg) -- Core Scientific Inc., one of the largest miners of Bitcoin, became the latest crypto company to file for bankruptcy as the industry reckons with a plunge in digital-asset prices.

The Austin, Texas-based company listed $1.4 billion of assets against $1.33 billion of liabilities in its Chapter 11 petition, which was filed in the Southern District of Texas. The company’s shares, already down 98% this year to trade at a fraction of a dollar, lost a further 40% on Wednesday morning.

Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows a company to continue operating while it works out a plan to repay creditors. Core Scientific said in a statement that it intends to reach a restructuring agreement with a group of convertible bondholders and continue operating its mining and hosting business.

The company contributes about 10% of the computing power to secure the entire Bitcoin network. It had 243,000 servers for Bitcoin mining with 143,000 for self-mining. It has provided hosting services to the largest miners in the industry.

In court filings, the company attributed its bankruptcy to falling Bitcoin prices, soaring energy costs and the July bankruptcy of Celsius, one of its largest hosting customers.

The company also over-committed on construction costs to build out its mining operations and owed around $275 million on equipment financing debts that it wasn’t paying significant amounts on before the filing.

Core Scientific is among a handful of Bitcoin mining companies that went public in 2021 through special-purpose acquisition companies before crypto prices fell. However, the “crypto winter” and energy cost hikes have wrecked havoc on the industry, and many major miners now face liquidity crunches.

A slew of crypto companies have sought bankruptcy protection this year as slumping token prices continue to weigh on the sector. Compute North Holdings Inc., a provider of data services for miners and blockchain companies, filed for bankruptcy in September, while Voyager Digital Ltd. sought court protection in July. Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX exchange filed for bankruptcy in November under a cloud of alleged mismanagement, a move that forced lender BlockFi Inc. to follow suit soon after.

Among Bitcoin miners, Greenidge Generation Holdings Inc., once one of the largest public Bitcoin miners in the US, warned Tuesday that it may seek bankruptcy protection while entering into debt restructuring talks with lender New York Digital Investment Group.

Bankrupt Crypto Miner Soars in Move Reminiscent of Hertz

Matt Turner and David Pan
Thu, December 22, 2022


(Bloomberg) -- Core Scientific Inc. surged by a record 73% on Thursday just a day after the Bitcoin miner became the latest cryptocurrency company to file for bankruptcy.

It’s a move reminiscent of the one seen in Revlon Inc. earlier this year after its own Chapter 11 filing. Retail traders caused similarly confusing spikes of other bankrupt companies in mid-2020 including Hertz Global Holdings Inc. and JCPenney.

“Maybe after seeing the list of creditors and assets on hand, investors could have gained some confidence that there actually will be a positive future,” said Matthew Kimmell, digital asset analyst at crypto investment firm CoinShares. “It is not an FTX situation, where they are heavily weighted in the liability category versus assets.”

The company’s bankruptcy fillings show that it has $1.4 billion assets against about $1.3 billion liabilities and that makes the miner different from most bankrupt crypto firms. US authorities are pursuing a sprawling investigation into the collapse last month of FTX, which was once one of the world’s biggest crypto exchanges.

On Thursday, Core Scientific received permission to access a $37.5 million loan to help fund its bankruptcy. The Bitcoin miner is working on a plan to restructure its debts that would nearly wipe out existing shareholders.

About 544 million Core Scientific shares changed hands, nearly 3,000% more than its daily average over the past three months. But, unlike with Hertz and Revlon, retail investors appeared to be avoiding the frenzy. Roughly 1,000 buy orders were placed on Fidelity’s platform, according to data provided by the firm, markedly lagging demand for true retail-trader favorites.

Even with Thursday’s sudden rally, Core Scientific remains as one of the worst performing stocks in the US for 2022. After starting the year trading at roughly $11 per share, the company has watched its share price crater by 99% year-to-date, trading as low as 5 cents following Wednesday’s bankruptcy announcement.

Austin, Texas-based Core Scientific is the largest Bitcoin miner by computing power and the first major public mining company that has declared bankruptcy. Bitcoin miners raised billions of dollars from debt financing during the last bull run but have struggled to repay debt due to low Bitcoin prices and power cost hikes.

--With assistance from Bailey Lipschultz and Jeremy Hill.

HQ MOVES
Hundreds of workers leaving Tyson Foods as company closes offices: report

Ken Martin
Wed, December 21, 2022 

Hundreds of employees at Tyson Foods have decided not to relocate to the company's headquarters in Arkansas next year as the company consolidates its corporate offices.

The workers are reportedly from two of its largest business units, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Tyson announced in October that it planned to close its offices in Chicago, Downers Grove, Ill., and Dakota Dunes, S.D.

Those corporate employees work in the prepared foods, beef and pork divisions. About 1,000 employees total work in those locations, the company has said.

CHICAGO FACES MORE CORPORATE DEPARTURES AS TYSON FOODS MOVES TO ARKANSAS

A sign hangs above the Tyson Foods offices in Chicago, Illinois.

Tyson set a deadline of Nov. 14 to decide if they would relocate.

About three-quarters of the 500 employees in Tyson’s South Dakota office told the company they wouldn’t make the move.

More than 90% of the employees in Tyson’s Chicago office have declined to relocate, people told the Journal.

Nationwide, the meat company has about 120,000 employees, with about 114,000 of them working in production plants.

TYSON FOODS LATEST LARGE BUSINESS TO FLEE CHICAGO, WHAT SPARKED THE EXODUS?

."I’m confident the plan we have in place ensures business continuity and positions us for long-term success," said Tyson Chief Executive Donnie King in a statement. "We knew there would be a variety of responses when we announced the consolidation of our corporate locations."

Some key managers have planned to leave instead of relocate including the leader of its beef and pork unit.

Tyson Foods Inc. signage on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Tyson’s beef and pork division makes up almost half the company’s $53 billion in revenue in its 2022 fiscal year.

Tyson Foods Employees From Chicago And Dakota Business Units Plan To Quit


Shivani Kumaresan
Thu, December 22, 2022 



Tyson Foods Inc (NYSE: TSN) employees from its Illinois and South Dakota business units are planning to leave the company.

The move comes as Tyson solidifies its corporate offices to northwest Arkansas in 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The food processing company had said in October it plans to bring together all its corporate team members from the Chicago, Downers Grove and Dakota Dunes area corporate locations to its world headquarters in Springdale, Arkansas.

The decision, according to Tyson, is expected to boost closer collaboration, enhance team member agility, and enable faster decision-making.

So, the company asked its workers to decide if they wanted to relocate to Arkansas and gave them time until November 14.

About three-quarters of the 500 employees in the South Dakota office have seemingly decided against moving to Arkansas and are mulling leaving when the company winds up its offices in mid-2023.

Also, over 90% of workers in Chicago did not favor relocating.

The senior vice president of Tyson’s pork business, Leah Andersen, is also expected to leave.

Tyson’s beef and pork division constituted about half of its $53 billion revenue in FY2022.

“I’m confident the plan we have in place ensures business continuity and positions us for long-term success,” said CEO Donnie King.

“We knew there would be a variety of responses when we announced the consolidation of our corporate locations.”

France fines Microsoft €60 million for imposing ad cookies on users

NEWS WIRES
Thu, 22 December 2022 

© Mike Blake, Reuters

France's privacy watchdog said Thursday it has fined US tech giant Microsoft 60 million euros ($64 million) for foisting advertising cookies on users.

In the largest fine imposed in 2022, the National Commission for Technology and Freedoms (CNIL) said Microsoft's search engine Bing had not set up a system allowing users to refuse cookies as simply as accepting them.

The French regulator said that after investigations it found that "when users visited this site, cookies were deposited on their terminal without their consent, while these cookies were used, among others, for advertising purposes."

It also "observed that there was no button allowing to refuse the deposit of cookies as easily as accepting it."

The CNIL said the fine was justified in part because of the profits the company made from advertising profits indirectly generated from the data collected via cookies -- tiny data files that track online browsing.

The company has been given three months to rectify the issue, with a potential further penalty of 60,000 euros per day overdue.

Last year the CNIL said it would carry out a year of checks against sites not following the rules on using web cookies. Google and Facebook were sanctioned last year by the CNI with fines of 150 million and 60 millioneuros respectively for similar breaches.

Culture Re-View: Why is 22/12/12 the most important fictional date in pop culture?

David Mouriquand

Wed, 21 December 2022 

Culture Re-View: Why is 22/12/12 the most important fictional date in pop culture?

22 December 2012: The colonization of the planet by aliens was supposed to begin exactly 10 years ago today… in The X Files, that is.

In TV show The X-Files' season 9 finale (and final episodes at the time, titled “The Truth” - aired on 19 May 2002), the date was set.

Everything that fictional FBI agents Mulder and Scully were looking to uncover had come down to one date: 22/12/12.

This was the date the conspiracists had set with an alien race for colonization to begin.

Scene revealing the truth in the final episodes of The X Files, Season 9 - Fox

Spoiler alert: It didn’t take place – fictionally or in real-life, as many predicted the end of the world due to the Mayan calendar ending in 2012.

But we’re still here, and by 2016's season 10 revival of the show, the aliens still had yet to invade Earth.

The new seasons of The X Files gave fans renewed hope that the mythology arc would be wrapped up and that the failed colonization would be explained. Series creator Chris Carter moved past it and wrote themselves out of an apocalypse corner by including one scene in the season 11 premiere which explained why colonization didn't occur: the aliens called off their colonization plans because they had "no interest in a warming planet with vanishing resources."

Essentially, Earth has become too spoiled by its inhabitants to colonize.

Food for thought…

You can expect a shedload of X Files coverage from Euronews Culture next year, as the beloved and hugely influential TV series turns 30 in September 2023.

Time flies when the truth is out there.