April 22 saw 271,801 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $858,704.00 BD. 110,000 shares were traded by Argus Group Holdings Ltd, closing down 1.9% at $2.05 per share, while the other 161,801 shares were traded by One Communications Ltd, closing even at $4.00 per share. The BSX finished at 1,542.73, down 0.05% […] (Click to read the full article)

April 23 saw 16,500 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $105,375.00 BD. 1,500 shares were traded by Ascendant Group Limited, closing at an even $30.25 per share, while the other 15,000 shares were traded by One Communications Ltd, closing even at $4.00 per share. The BSX finished at 1,542.73, even on the […] (Click to read the full article)

April 24 saw 1,000 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $30,250.00 BD. 1,000 shares were traded by Ascendant Group Limited, closing even at $30.25 per share. The BSX finished at 1,542.73, even on the day. There were 0 advances, 0 declines, and 60 remained unchanged. The full report for the day is […] (Click to read the full article)

April 27 saw 1,500 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $45,375.00 BD. 1,500 shares were traded by Ascendant Group Limited, closing even at $30.25 per share. The BSX finished at 1,542.73, even on the day. There were 0 advances, 0 declines, and 60 remained unchanged. The full report for the day is […] (Click to read the full article)

April 28 saw 16,500 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $105,375.00 BD. 1,500 shares were traded by Ascendant Group Limited, closing at an even $30.25 per share, while the other 15,000 shares were traded by One Communications Ltd, closing even at $4.00 per share. The BSX finished at 1,542.73, even on the […] (Click to read the full article)

April 29 saw 2,000 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $60,500.00 BD. 2,000 shares were traded by Ascendant Group Limited, closing even at $30.25 per share. The BSX finished at 1,542.73, even on the day. There were 0 advances, 0 declines, and 60 remained unchanged. The full report for the day is […] (Click to read the full article)

April 30 saw 10,400 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $227,000.00 BD. 10,000 shares were traded by Bank of N.T. Butterfield Ltd, closing up 13.2% at $21.50 per share, while another 400 shares were traded by Ascendant Group Limited, closing down 0.8% at $30.00 per share. The BSX finished at 1,652.75, up […] (Click to read the full article)

May 1 saw 76,500 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $298,350.00 BD. 76,500 shares were traded by One Communications Ltd, closing down 2.5% at $3.90 per share. The BSX finished at 1,651.38, down 0.08% on the day. There were 0 advances, 1 decline, and 59 remained unchanged. The full report for the […] (Click to read the full article)

May 4 saw 2,500 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $75,625.00 BD. 2,500 shares were traded by Ascendant Group Limited, closing up 0.8% at $30.25 per share. The BSX finished at 1,653.79, up 0.15% on the day. There was 1 advance, 0 declines, and 59 remained unchanged. The full report for the […] (Click to read the full article)

May 5 saw 733 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $12,466.30 BD. 333 shares were traded by Bermuda Aviation Services Ltd, closing up 8.9% at $1.10 per share, while another 400 shares were traded by Ascendant Group Limited, closing even at $30.25 per share. The BSX finished at 1,654.21, up 0.03% on […] (Click to read the full article)

Bermuda-based Arch Capital Group Ltd. announced its 2020 first quarter results. The results included: Net income available to Arch common shareholders of $133.7 million, or $0.32 per share, a 5.0% annualized return on average common equity, compared to $438.1 million, or $1.07 per share, for the 2019 first quarter; After-tax operating income available to Arch […] (Click to read the full article)

AXIS Capital Holdings Limited announced financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2020. Commenting on the first quarter 2020 financial results, Albert Benchimol, President and CEO of AXIS Capital, said: “As our industry and society continue to navigate the challenges brought on by COVID-19, our primary thoughts are with the people, families and […] (Click to read the full article)

In a filing with the Bermuda Stock Exchange [BSX], One Communications Ltd., advised that pursuant to its share repurchase programme, during the month of April 2020 the company repurchased 99,000 of its common shares at an average price of $4.00 for immediate cancellation. Related Stories One Communications Share Repurchases One Communications Share Repurchase One Communications […] (Click to read the full article)

May 6 saw 6,000 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $172,050.00 BD. 1,000 shares were traded by Bank of N.T. Butterfield Ltd, closing down 7.0% at $20.00 per share, while another 4,700 shares were traded by Ascendant Group Limited, closing up 12.2% at $33.95 per share. 300 shares were traded by One […] (Click to read the full article)

RenaissanceRe Holdings reported net loss attributable to RenaissanceRe common shareholders of $82.0 million, or $1.89 per diluted common share, in the first quarter of 2020, compared to net income available to RenaissanceRe common shareholders of $273.7 million, or $6.43 per diluted common share, in the first quarter of 2019. Operating income available to RenaissanceRe common shareholders […] (Click to read the full article)

May 7 saw 1,700 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $7,790.00 BD. 200 shares were traded by Polaris Holding Co. Ltd, closing at an even $8.95 per share, while the other 1,500 shares were traded by One Communications Ltd, closing even at $4.00 per share. The BSX finished at 1,623.80, even on […] (Click to read the full article)

May 8 saw 126 shares trade on the Bermuda Stock Exchange, valued at $3,886.50 BD. 126 shares were traded by Ascendant Group Limited, closing down 8.7% at $31.00 per share. The BSX finished at 1,595.35, down 1.75% on the day. There were 0 advances, 1 decline, and 59 remained unchanged. The full report for the […] (Click to read the full article)

Essent Group Ltd. reported net income for the quarter ended March 31, 2020 of $149.5 million or $1.52 per diluted share, compared to $127.7 million or $1.30 per diluted share for the quarter ended March 31, 2019. Essent also announced that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.16 per common […] (Click to read the full article)

Bermuda-based PartnerRe Ltd. reported a net loss attributable to common shareholder of $433 million for the first quarter of 2020. The company said, “PartnerRe Ltd. reported a net loss attributable to common shareholder of $433 million for the first quarter of 2020, which included net realized and unrealized investment losses of $27 million on fixed […] (Click to read the full article)

The Bermuda Snooker Association sent a team of three players to represent Bermuda at the International Snooker League [ISL] Tournament held at ‘The Corner Bank,’ Toronto, Canada. Warwick’s Steven Bremar, Sandy’s Paul Fedden and The Royal Artillery Association’s Kyle Williams competed in the Team event, Singles Handicap, Don Thomas Handicap, Doubles Handicap and Singles Scratch […] (Click to read the full article)

While there have been no cases of COVID-19 identified in Bermuda, the spread of it “across the globe highlights that it is highly infectious and therefore it will remain a threat to Bermuda in the foreseeable future,” Minister of Health Kim Wilson said. Speaking in the House of Assembly today [Feb 28] Minister Wilson said, […] (Click to read the full article)

A One Bermuda Alliance Government would “explore the feasibility of decreasing payroll for employers by increasing the cost of work permits.” The OBA believes the move would be revenue neutral and could encourage the hiring of Bermudians, Shadow Finance Minister Pat Gordon-Pamplin said in today’s Budget Reply. In addition, the OBA said they “would lay […] (Click to read the full article)

The OBA used their Budget reply to “attempt to obscure or belittle the progress being made by the PLP Government,” the PLP said, adding that it is “laughable” that the “big suggestion offered” is to raise work permit fees, an idea which “was rolled out by the Finance Minister last week and will become a […] (Click to read the full article)

“The Government is taking proactive steps to effectively respond to this global outbreak,” Minister of Health Kim Wilson said in the House of Assembly today [March 11]. The Minister said, “Hand sanitizers have been ordered, which will contribute to the essential hand hygiene needed to protect ourselves and prevent spread. Though we have to remember, […] (Click to read the full article)

In light of the global Covid-19 pandemic, the Bermuda Housing Trust [BHT] is taking steps to protect their 194 tenants living in five properties located across Bermuda. A spokesperson said, “At the Bermuda Housing Trust [BHT], we are constantly monitoring the risk that Covid-19 might represent to the 194 tenants living in our five properties […] (Click to read the full article)

Bernews hosted a News & Views panel discussion today [Oct 11], with Bermuda Fire & Rescue Service Divisional Officer Mark Taylor and Royal Bermuda Regiment Major Dwight Robinson discussing various aspects related to preparing for the approach of a hurricane and how their services respond during and after a storm. Strong winds swept across the […] (Click to read the full article)

Larry Ellison, whose syndicate lost the America’s Cup to New Zealand, might be announcing a “World Series of Sailing” event, with an article at by sailing journalist Rob Mundle saying “it is now likely” that one round of the World Series would be held in Bermuda. The story said “Larry Ellison, whose syndicate lost the […] (Click to read the full article)

In addition to the PWC report, the America’s Cup Bermuda also released a 56-page ‘Legacy Impact Report’, saying that one of the aims of the event was to “ensure that Bermuda and its people can benefit from its legacy for many years to come.” The report’s executive summary said, ”The 35th America’s Cup provided Bermuda with a unique opportunity […] (Click to read the full article)

Six months after returning to the UK from Bermuda – where the team were based for the 35th America’s Cup – Land Rover BAR are now sharing their learnings and achievements in the Bermuda Sustainability Report, saying that “large sporting events present a unique opportunity to leave a lasting legacy and a positive impact in […] (Click to read the full article)

All 50 states and the District of Columbia have applied research results from TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program to policy decisions or used them to introduce or change practice, as a reference source, or for new or additional research. The NCHRP Impact Report 2019 , a follow up to the NCHRP Impact Report 2018 , attempts to document and present the outcomes and impacts of the application of NCHRP research results. Containing data and anecdotes compiled from various sources, the report pr...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Report 106: Being Prepared for IROPS: A Business-Planning and Decision-Making Approach describes a process to help justify airport planning, and funding decisions (capital, and operations and maintenance) related to supporting irregular operations (IROPS) contingency planning. The report presents a structured approach to quantifying the lifecycle economic value of proposed IROPS mitigation alternatives through a spreadsheet-based business-planning and dec...

Long-awaited details for Ohio’s plan to at least partially lift the stay-at-home order and reopen the state could come as soon as Monday. Gov. Mike DeWine said last week that a “breakthrough” in the state’s testing capacity for COVID-19 will help ensure the state can reopen safely.

Gov. Mike DeWine on Friday extended what he called “Stay Safe Ohio” measures until May 29, restricting residents’ movements as the state begins to reopen. The state’s death toll passed the 1,000 mark, with an increase in hospitalizations, too.

TRB's Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 191: A Primer to Prepare for the Connected Airport and the Internet of Things introduces the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) within the airport environment to leverage current and emerging technologies. IoT can be used to provide information and services to airport passengers with current and evolving technologies. Airports, airlines, and other stakeholders can use these innovative technologies and data to enhance the user exp...

Airports must maintain a safe and efficient facility while considering environmental impacts. Though traditional environmental challenges such as noise and water quality remain, several new themes are emerging, including energy management, sustainability, resiliency, and wildlife management. Airports will need guidelines and practices to help them address these pressing issues, and the first step in the process is to identify knowledge gaps and research needs. The TRB Airport Cooperative Research Program...

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 47: Repairing and Maintaining Airport Parking Structures While in Use provides information on developing and implementing successful maintenance and repair strategies for in-use airport parking structures that involve the least impact on the airport patrons, revenue stream, and facility operations.

EPA announced the availability of the Guidelines for Human Exposure Assessment (hereafter "Guidelines"). The Guidelines present the current policies and practices of exposure assessors across the Agency and supersede the 1992 Guidelines for Exposure Assessment Edition.

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Research Report 163: Guidebook for Preparing and Using Airport Design Day Flight Schedules explores the preparation and use of airport design day flight schedules (DDFS) for operations, planning, and development. The guidebook is geared towards airport leaders to help provide an understanding of DDFS and their uses, and provides detailed information for airport staff and consultants on how to prepare one.

Major technological and security changes in the aviation industry over the past 20 years have forced airport leaders and aviation stakeholders to think of new research ideas that will improve the planning and development of policies and new models that foster growth of air service, incorporate new airport and customer technology, revise airport business models, and better interact with neighboring communities. ACRP (Airport Cooperative Research Program) Web-Only Document 39: Policy and Planning Issues Ro...

Po nějaké době opět exhumovali prezidenta Miloše Zemana z jeho krypty v Lánech, nabalzamovali ho a poslali mezi lidi, aby ukázal, že ještě žije, a hlavně aby promluvil k národu. Tentokrát se prezident Miloš Zeman vyjadřoval k aféře, kdy měl do České republiky přicestovat ruský občan s kufříkem plným ricinu se záměrem otrávit tři regionální politiky.

Bojíte se, že letos nebudete zatlačovat slzu u zlatavých nekonečných obzorů? Ale budete. A mnozí alergici na řepku slzy zatlačují už teď. Rajčata stojí sice 170kč za kilo, květák je už také kaviárem českých domácností, ale heslo "řídit stát jako zemědělství" nám zajistilo širé moře zlaté barvy. Sice se z řepky nenajíme (teda až na ty, co z pěstování rýžují zlaté dotace), ale že jsou to panorámata, co? 

The PHP development team announces the immediate availability of PHP 7.2.30. This is a security release.All PHP 7.2 users are encouraged to upgrade to this version.For source downloads of PHP 7.2.30 please visit our downloads page, Windows source and binaries can be found on windows.php.net/download/. The list of changes is recorded in the ChangeLog.

Have you heard of Heath Freeman? He's a thirty-something hedge fund boss, who runs "Alden Global Capital," which owns a company misleadingly called "Digital First Media." His business has been to buy up local newspapers around the country and basically cut everything down to the bone, and just milk the assets for whatever cash they still produce, minus all the important journalism stuff. He's been called "the hedge fund asshole", "the hedge fund vampire that bleeds newspapers dry", "a small worthless footnote", the "Gordon Gecko" of newspapers and a variety of other fun things.

Reading through some of those links above, you find a standard playbook for Freeman's managing of newspapers:

These are the assholes who a few years ago bought the Denver Post, once one of the best regional newspapers in the country, and hollowed it out into a shell of its former self, then laid off some more people. Things got so bad that the Post’s own editorial board rebelled, demanding that if “Alden isn’t willing to do good journalism here, it should sell the Post to owners who will.”

And here's one of the other links from above telling a similar story:

The Denver newsroom was hardly alone in its misery. In Northern California, a combined editorial staff of 16 regional newspapers had reportedly been slashed from 1,000 to a mere 150. Farther down the coast in Orange County, there were according to industry analyst Ken Doctor, complained of rats, mildew, fallen ceilings, and filthy bathrooms. In her Washington Post column, media critic Margaret Sullivan called Alden “one of the most ruthless of the corporate strip-miners seemingly intent on destroying local journalism.”

And, yes, I think it's fair to say that many newspapers did get a bit fat and happy with their old school monopolistic hold on the news market pre-internet. And many of them failed to adapt. And so, restructuring and re-prioritizing is not a bad idea. But that's not really what's happening here. Alden appears to be taking profitable (not just struggling) newspapers, and squeezing as much money out of them directly into Freeman's pockets, rather than plowing it back into actual journalism. And Alden/DFM appears to be ridiculously profitable for Freeman, even as the journalism it produces becomes weaker and weaker. Jim Brady called it "combover journalism." Basically using skeleton staff to pretend to really be covering the news, when it's clear to everyone that it's not really doing the job.

All of that is prelude to the latest news that Freeman, who basically refuses to ever talk to the media, has sent a letter to other newspaper bosses suggesting they collude to force Google and Facebook to make him even richer.

You can see the full letter here:

Let's go through this nonsense bit by bit, because it is almost 100% nonsense.

These are immensely challenging times for all of us in the newspaper industry as we balance the two equally important goals of keeping the communities we serve fully informed, while also striving to safeguard the viability of our news organizations today and well into the future.

Let's be clear: the "viability" of your newsrooms was decimated when you fired a huge percentage of the local reporters and stuffed the profits into your pockets, rather than investing in the actual product.

Since Facebook was founded in 2004, nearly 2,000 (one in five) newspapers have closed and with them many thousands of newspaper jobs have been lost. In that same time period, Google has become the world's primary news aggregation service, Apple launched a news app with a subsription-based tier and Twitter has become a household name by serving as a distribution service for the content our staffs create.

Correlation is not causation, of course. But even if that were the case, the focus of a well-managed business would be to adapt to the changing market place to take advantage of, say, new distribution channels, new advertising and subscription products, and new ways of building a loyal community around your product. You know, the things that Google, Facebook and Twitter did... which your newspaper didn't do, perhaps because you fired a huge percentage of their staff and re-directed the money flow away from product and into your pocket.

Recent developments internationally, which will finally require online platforms to compensate the news industry are encouraging. I hope we can collaborate to move this issue forward in the United States in a fair and productive way. Just this month, April 2020, French antitrust regulators ordered Google to pay news publishers for displaying snippets of articles after years of helping itself to excerpts for its news service. As regulators in France said, "Google's practices caused a serious and immediate harm to the press sector, while the economic situation of publishers and news agencies is otherwise fragile." The Australian government also recently said that Facebook and Google would have to pay media outlets in the country for news content. The country's Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg noted "We can't deny the importance of creating a level playing field, ensuring a fair go for companies and the appropriate compensation for content."

We have, of course, written about both the plans in France as well as those in Australia (not to mention a similar push in Canada that Freeman apparently missed). Of course, what he's missing is... well, nearly everything. First, the idea that it's Google that's causing problems for the news industry is laughable on multiple fronts.

If newspapers feel that Google is causing them harm by linking to them and sending them traffic, then they can easily block Google, which respects robots.txt restrictions. I don't see Freeman's newspaper doing that. Second, in most of the world, Google does not monetize its Google News aggregation service, so the idea that it's someone making money off of "their" news, is not supported by reality. Third, the idea that "the news" is "owned" by the news organizations is not just laughable, but silly. After all, the news orgs are not making the news. If Freeman is going to claim that news orgs should be compensated for "their" news, then, uh, shouldn't his news orgs be paying the actual people who make the news that they're reporting on? Or is he saying that journalism is somehow special?

Finally, and most importantly, he says all of this as if we haven't seen how these efforts play out in practice. When Germany passed a similar law, Google ended up removing snippets only to be told they had to pay anyway. Google, correctly, said that if it had to license snippets, it would offer a price of $0, or it would stop linking to the sites -- and the news orgs agreed. In Spain, where Google was told it couldn't do this, the company shut down Google News and tons of smaller publications were harmed, not helped, but this policy.

This surely sounds familiar to all of us. It's been more than a decade since Rupert Murdoch instinctively observerd: "There are those who think they have a right to take our news content and use it for their own purposes without contributing a penny to its production... Their almost wholesale misappropriation of our stories is not fair use. To be impolite, it's theft."

First off, it's not theft. As we pointed out at the time, Rupert Murdoch, himself, at the very time he was making these claims, owned a whole bunch of news aggregators himself. The problem was never news aggregators. The problem has always been that other companies are successful on the internet and Rupert Murdoch was not. And, again, the whole "misappropriation" thing is nonsense: any news site is free to block Google's scrapers and if it's "misappropriation" to send you traffic, why do all of these news organizations employ "search engine optimizers" who work to get their sites higher in the rankings? And, yet again, are they paying the people who make the actual news? If not, then it seems like they're full of shit.

With Facebook and Google recently showing some contrition by launching token programs that provide a modest amount of funding, it's heartening to see that the tech giants are beginning to understand their moral and social responsibility to support and safeguard local journalism.

Spare me the "moral and social responsibility to support and safeguard local journalism," Heath. You're the one who cut 1,000 journalism jobs down to 150. Not Google. You're the one who took profitable newspapers that were investing in local journalism, fired a huge number of their reporters and staff, and redirected the even larger profits into your pockets instead of local journalism.

Even if someone wants to argue this fallacy, it should not be you, Heath.

Facebook created the Facebook Journalism Project in 2017 "to forge stronger ties with the news industry and work with journalists and publishers." If Facebook and the other tech behemoths are serious about wanting to "forge stronger ties with the news industry," that will start with properly remunerating the original producers of content.

Remunerating the "original producers"? So that means that Heath is now agreeing to compensate the people who create the news that his remaining reporters write up? Oh, no? He just means himself -- the middleman -- being remunerated directly into his pocket while he continues to cut jobs from his newsroom while raking in record profits? That seems... less compelling.

Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple News and other online aggregators make billions of dollars annually from original, compelling content that our reporters, photographers and editors create day after day, hour after hour. We all know the numbers, and this one underscores the value of our intellectual property: The New York Times reported that in 2018, Google alone conservatively made $4.7 billion from the work of news publishers. Clearly, content-usage fees are an appropriate and reasonable way to help ensure newspapers exist to provide communities across the country with robust high-quality local journalism.

First of all, the $4.7 billion is likely nonsense, but even if it were accurate, Google is making that money by sending all those news sites a shit ton of traffic. Why aren't they doing anything reasonable to monetize it? And, of course, Digital First Media has bragged about its profitability, and leaked documents suggest its news business brought in close to a billion dollars in 2017 with a 17% operating margin, significantly higher than all other large newspaper chains.

This is nothing more than "Google has money, we want more money, Google needs to give us the money." There is no "clearly" here and "usage fees" are nonsense. If you don't want Google's traffic, put up robots.txt. Google will survive, but your papers might not.

One model to consider is how broadcast television stations, which provide valuable local news, successfully secured sizable retransmission fees for their programming from cable companies, satellite providers and telcos.

There are certain problems with retransmission fees in the first place (given that broadcast television was, by law, freely transmitted over the air in exchange for control over large swaths of spectrum), and the value they got was in having a large audience to advertise too. But, more importantly, retransmission involved taking an entire broadcast channel and piping it through cable and satellite to make things easier for TV watchers who didn't want to switch between an antenna and a cable (or satellite receiver). An aggregator is not -- contrary to what one might think reading Freeman's nonsense -- retransmitting anything. It's linking to your content and sending you traffic on your own site. The only things it shows are a headline and (sometimes) a snippet to attract more traffic.

There are certainly other potential options worth of our consideration -- among them whether to ask Congress about revisiting thoughtful limitations on "Fair Use" of copyrighted material, or seeking judicial review of how our trusted content is misused by others for their profit. By beginning a collective dialogue on these topics we can bring clarity around the best ways to proceed as an industry.

Ah, yes, let's throw fair use -- the very thing that news orgs regularly rely on to not get sued into the ground -- out the window in an effort to get Google to funnel extra money into Heath Freeman's pockets. That sounds smart. Or the other thing. Not smart.

And "a collective dialogue" in this sense appears to be collusion. As in an antitrust violation. Someone should have maybe mentioned that to Freeman.

Our newspaper brands and operations are the engines that power trust local news in communities across the United States.

Note that it's the brands and operations -- not journalists -- that he mentions here. That's a tell.

Fees from those who use and profit from our content can help continually optimize our product as well as ensure our newsrooms have the resources they need.

Again, Digital First Media, is perhaps the most profitable newspaper chain around. And it just keeps laying off reporters.

My hope is that we are able to work together towards the shared goal of protecting and enhancing local journalism.

You first, Heath, you first.

So, basically, Heath Freeman, who has spent decade or so buying up profitable newspapers, laying off a huge percentage of their newsrooms, leaving a shell of a husk in their place, then redirecting the continued profits (often that exist solely because of the legacy brand) into his own pockets rather than in journalism... wants the other newspapers to collude with him to force successful internet companies who send their newspapers a ton of free traffic to pay him money for the privilege of sending them traffic.

Sounds credible.

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Even Exchange’s marketing bod reckons tests of new Reply-All-stopper could be a career-defining moment

Microsoft may just have made Reply All storms a thing of the past, by adding a suitable blocker to Exchange in Office 365 environments.…

The prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is increasing worldwide. Although gene-environment interactions have been implicated in the etiology of several disorders, the impact of paternal and/or maternal metabolic syndrome on the clinical phenotypes of offspring and the underlying genetic and epigenetic contributors of NAFLD have not been fully explored. To this end, we used the liver-specific insulin receptor knockout (LIRKO) mouse, a unique nondietary model manifesting 3 hallmarks that confer high risk for the development of NAFLD: hyperglycemia, insulin resistance, and dyslipidemia. We report that parental metabolic syndrome epigenetically reprograms members of the TGF-β family, including neuronal regeneration–related protein (NREP) and growth differentiation factor 15 (GDF15). NREP and GDF15 modulate the expression of several genes involved in the regulation of hepatic lipid metabolism. In particular, NREP downregulation increases the protein abundance of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl-CoA reductase (HMGCR) and ATP-citrate lyase (ACLY) in a TGF-β receptor/PI3K/protein kinase B–dependent manner, to regulate hepatic acetyl-CoA and cholesterol synthesis. Reduced hepatic expression of NREP in patients with NAFLD and substantial correlations between low serum NREP levels and the presence of steatosis and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis highlight the clinical translational relevance of our findings in the context of recent preclinical trials implicating ACLY in NAFLD progression.

Lamin A is a component of the inner nuclear membrane that, together with epigenetic factors, organizes the genome in higher order structures required for transcriptional control. Mutations in the lamin A/C gene cause several diseases belonging to the class of laminopathies, including muscular dystrophies. Nevertheless, molecular mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of lamin A–dependent dystrophies are still largely unknown. The polycomb group (PcG) of proteins are epigenetic repressors and lamin A interactors, primarily involved in the maintenance of cell identity. Using a murine model of Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy (EDMD), we show here that lamin A loss deregulated PcG positioning in muscle satellite stem cells, leading to derepression of non–muscle-specific genes and p16INK4a, a senescence driver encoded in the Cdkn2a locus. This aberrant transcriptional program caused impairment in self-renewal, loss of cell identity, and premature exhaustion of the quiescent satellite cell pool. Genetic ablation of the Cdkn2a locus restored muscle stem cell properties in lamin A/C–null dystrophic mice. Our findings establish a direct link between lamin A and PcG epigenetic silencing and indicate that lamin A–dependent muscular dystrophy can be ascribed to intrinsic epigenetic dysfunctions of muscle stem cells.

Apple's plan to release an updated version of AirPods later this year has been delayed due to the global health crisis, according to the Nikkei Asian Review.


This lines up with a recent report from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who said that mass production of third-generation AirPods will begin in the first half of 2021, followed by mass production of second-generation AirPods Pro between the fourth quarter of 2021 and the first quarter of 2022. Kuo also expects Apple's rumored high-end over-ear headphones to enter mass production at some point in mid-2020.

Kuo did acknowledge rumors of new AirPods coming in the second half of 2020, but he said they are "more likely to be the new Beats model." Last month, leaker Jon Prosser claimed that Apple was planning to release so-called "AirPods X" around September or October with a BeatsX-like design for sports and running.

Apple's second-generation AirPods launched in March 2019, while the AirPods Pro were released at the end of October.

This article, "Apple's Plan to Introduce New AirPods Later This Year Reportedly Delayed" first appeared on MacRumors.com

Discuss this article in our forums

Apple in mid-April reopened Apple Garosugil, its lone store in South Korea, located in the Seoul's Gangnam District.


Apple's South Korea reopening has served as a test ground for further store reopenings, and Apple created an instructional video on reopening practices that's now being shared with other retail employees around the world as they prepare to reopen stores. We're not able to share the video, but it provides a good overview of the measures Apple is putting in place to safely operate retail locations.

Retail employees are following a strict set of guidelines that very heavily emphasize social distancing of two meters (or six feet in the United States). Apple is taking the following measures:

• Prior to when work starts, all employees undergo a health screening complete with a temperature check, with the results logged in a daily spreadsheet.


• Daily briefings are done in the mornings in the Forum area at Apple Stores, with employees making sure to sit at least two meters apart.


• Prior to being allowed in the store, customers are also given a temperature check.


• All ‌Apple Stores‌ are providing hand sanitizer, which customers are encouraged to use.


• Stores are limiting the number of people inside, forming lines with customers waiting at least two meters apart.


• Products purchased by customers or returned after repair are delivered from the back in a relay system, being handed off from employee to employee to allow each person to stay in a separated zone without back and forth.


• Product specialists and Genius Bar staff are positioning themselves across tables away from customers in order to maintain distance.


• In the forum area, employees sit one cube away from customers they're interacting with.


• Employees are encouraged to communicate with one another through the Talk app to cut down on unnecessary movement within the store.


• Half of the workstations in the back are empty, with employees working at alternating workstations to keep more distance between them.


• Tables have been rearranged to put products on corners to prevent customers from being near one another.


• Products on tables have been reduced.


• Communal tables and couches have been removed from employee break rooms and have been replaced with individual chairs evenly spaced about the room.


• Operating hours are reduced.


• Employees are all wearing face masks.

After opening its South Korea store on April 16, Apple has reopened its sole store in Vienna, Austria, and 21 stores located in Australia. Stores in Germany will begin reopening on May 11, and all of the newly opened locations are following many of the same guidelines listed above to keep both customers and employees safe.

There's no word yet on when Apple retail stores in the United States will start to reopen, but Apple CEO Tim Cook last week said that stores in North America will begin reopening starting in the month of May.

Apple plans to evaluate data and make reopening decisions on a city by city, county by county basis, following local guidelines and recommendations before opening up a store.
This article, "Apple Preparing Retail Employees to Return to Work With Tips From South Korea Reopening" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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