The Securities and Exchange Commission today issued an order directing the equity exchanges and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) (the participants) to submit a new National Market System plan (NMS plan) with a modernized governance…

This conference offers a great opportunity for CCIPS, the Department, and each of our law enforcement colleagues gathered at the table today to discuss our shared efforts in IP enforcement, and to hear your comments about the latest successes and challenges. It’s an event that benefits all of us.

The head of a Houston-based company that was the subsidiary of a Chinese company that developed stolen trade secrets was sentenced to 16 months in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $330,000 by U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the District of Columbia.

Federal authorities announced today that an ongoing cooperative effort between law enforcement and a number of private-sector companies, including multiple internet domain providers and registrars, has disrupted hundreds of internet domains used to exploit the COVID-19 pandemic to commit fraud and other crimes.

Join us in an early celebration of Sunshine Week 2020 this Thursday, March 12.  

The Department of Justice has released the agenda and list of participants for its March 11, 2020, public workshop to solicit public dialogue on the proposed vertical merger guidelines. The workshop will be the first in a two-part series hosted together with the Federal Trade Commission. The two half-day workshops will allow for a dynamic discussion about the proposed guidelines to complement the written public comments about the proposed guidelines that were submitted to the agencies.

The Department of Justice this week concluded an arbitration that will resolve a civil antitrust lawsuit challenging Novelis Inc.’s proposed acquisition of Aleris Corporation. The lawsuit seeks to preserve competition in the North American market for rolled aluminum sheet for automotive applications, commonly referred to as aluminum auto body sheet. This marks the first time the Antitrust Division has used its authority under the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act of 1996 (5 U.S.C. § 571 et seq.) to resolve a matter.

The Department of Justice prevailed in a first-of-a-kind arbitration, which will resolve a civil antitrust lawsuit challenging Novelis’s proposed merger with Aleris Corporation.  As a result, Novelis must divest Aleris’s entire aluminum auto body sheet operations in North America, which will fully preserve competition in this important industry.  In addition, under the terms of the arbitration agreement between defendants and the Department, Novelis must reimburse the Department for its fees and costs incurred in connection with the arbitration.

Two commercial flooring executives, Robert A. Patrey Jr. and Kenneth R. Smith, pleaded guilty for their role in an antitrust conspiracy to rig bids and fix prices for commercial flooring services and products sold in the United States, the Department of Justice announced. The defendants are cooperating with the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation.

The Department of Justice Antitrust Division announced today that it has adopted a series of temporary changes to its civil merger investigation processes, which will remain in place during the pendency of the coronavirus (COVID-19) event. These changes will ensure that the Antitrust Division will be able to continue operations as its employees carry out their duties to protect American consumers under a mass telework directive, in accordance with health guidance from the CDC, WHO, and other health authorities.

The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division and The Federal Trade Commission today issued a joint statement detailing an expedited antitrust procedure and providing guidance for collaborations of businesses working to protect the health and safety of Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department of Justice announced today that it is requiring United Technologies Corporation (UTC) and Raytheon Company (Raytheon) to divest Raytheon’s military airborne radios business and UTC’s military global positioning systems (“GPS”) and large space-based optical systems businesses in order to proceed with their proposed merger.  Without these divestitures, the merger would eliminate competition between two of the primary suppliers of military airborne radios and military GPS systems to the Department of Defense (DoD), and enable the merged firm to lessen competition for multiple components used in reconnaissance satellites sold to DoD and the wider U.S. intelligence community.  

The U.S. Department of Justice announced today that it will not challenge collaborative efforts of McKesson Corporation, Owens & Minor, Inc., Cardinal Health, Inc., Medline Industries, Inc., and Henry Schein, Inc. (together “Medical Supplies Distributors”) to expedite and increase manufacturing, sourcing, and distribution of personal-protective equipment (“PPE”) and coronavirus-treatment-related medication. These collaborative efforts are part of an emergency response developed and led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to address supply needs arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Bureau of Competition jointly released a statement today affirming the importance of competition for American workers.  The agencies also announced that they will protect competition for workers on the frontlines of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) response in the United States by enforcing the antitrust laws against those who seek to exploit the pandemic to engage in anticompetitive conduct in labor markets.

The Department of Justice announced today that it will not challenge a proposal by the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) to operate an online platform for advertisers to solicit bids from companies that provide production services for commercial advertisements. The Department’s position was stated in a business review letter from Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim for the Antitrust Division to counsel for the AICP.

The Department of Justice announced today that it will not challenge collaborative efforts of AmerisourceBergen Corporation (AmerisourceBergen) to identify global supply opportunities, ensure product quality, and facilitate product distribution of medications and other healthcare supplies to treat COVID-19 patients.

Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute LLC (FCS), an oncology group headquartered in Fort Myers, Florida, was charged with conspiring to allocate medical and radiation oncology treatments for cancer patients in Southwest Florida, the Department of Justice announced.  This charge is the first in the department’s ongoing investigation into market allocation in the oncology industry.

The Department of Justice announced today the conclusion of its investigation into proposed acquisitions by Dairy Farmers of America Inc. (DFA) and Prairie Farms Dairy Inc. (Prairie Farms) of fluid milk processing plants from Dean Foods Company (Dean) out of bankruptcy.  The department’s investigation was conducted against the backdrop of unprecedented challenges in the dairy industry, with the two largest fluid milk processors in the U.S., Dean and Borden Dairy Company, in bankruptcy, and Dean faced with imminent liquidation.

Cengage Learning Holdings II Inc. and McGraw-Hill Education Inc. mutually agreed to abandon their plans to merge after the Department of Justice informed the companies it had serious concerns that the proposed transaction, as structured, would harm competition.

The article ‘Tracing the energy footprints of Indonesian manufacturing industry’ by Yales Vivadinar, Widodo W. Purwanto & Asep H. Saputra from Department of Chemical Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, Depok, Indonesia (published as Open Access in: Energy Science and Engineering 2016; 4(6): 394–405) looks at typical energy usage in different industrial manufacturing sectors in Indonesia.

There are Sankey diagrams representing “energy maps” for basic chemicals, cement, pulp, paper, spinning, weaving and textile finishing. I am showing two of them below. The first one is for the basic chemical industry.

Flows are in kboe (thousand barrels oil equivalent) for the year 2013. Losses are shown as grey arrows. The second one is for textile finishing:
[See image gallery at www.sankey-diagrams.com]
For those of you interested, please read the full paper here.

Some of you might have read the USA Today Network story about horse racing this week. The piece highlighted some pretty impressive statistics related to the broadcast and marketing of the limited racing calendar we've all been experiencing. One quote caught my eye: “NYRA chief revenue officer Tony Allevato said it had signed up seven […]

The post Commentary: Racing Has A New Set Of Wagering Customers, But Now What? appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Fasig-Tipton's decision to consolidate its 2020 select yearling sales into a single Kentucky auction and forego trade in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., due to the COVID-19 pandemic is historic, but it's not wholly unprecedented. In fact, this summer's re-shuffled auction schedule connects the circle for one of the bloodstock industry's most seismic flashpoints. The Fasig-Tipton yearling […]

The post How A Cancelled Fasig-Tipton Saratoga Sale Changed The Bloodstock Industry’s Playing Field appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

As a consequence of Storm The Court's victory in the $2 million Breeders' Cup Juvenile on November 1 at Santa Anita, the Peter Eurton-trained colt will be one of, if not the early favorites for the 2020 Kentucky Derby. Even though the win, under jockey Flavien Prat, was at odds of 45-1 and came after even-money favorite […]

The post Juvenile Winner Storm The Court ‘Just Chilling,’ Could Target February Return appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

We just wanted to take a moment and thank our readership for their amazing interest in being a part of this year's Breeders' Cup or Bust fundraising run/bike relay from Keeneland to Churchill Downs on Nov. 2 to benefit Breeders' Cup Charities. We have been overwhelmed by the positive support just a couple days after […]

The post Inside the Paulick Report: Breeders’ Cup or Bust off to a great start! appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

The board of directors of Equine Sales Company voted in favor of changing the date of its 2020 Consignor Select Yearling Sale including 2-Year-Olds in Training from Sept. 3 to Aug. 20. With the announcement of Fasig-Tipton consolidating its three yearling sales, which will be held on Sept. 9-10 in Lexington, Ky., and the Kentucky […]

The post Equine Sales Company Moves Combined Auction To August 20 appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Trainer Michael Yates' leap of faith in Cajun Breeze's stallion potential once again paid dividends at Gulfstream Park Friday, when Just Right Mike defeated a group of well-bred 2-year-olds to graduate in Race 2. The Florida-bred son of Cajun Breeze, who finished third in his debut April 17 after being bumped at the start, chased […]

The post 2-Year-Old Just Right Mike Latest Success Story For Sire Cajun Breeze appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

Officials need to be ready to react if supplies of protective gear start to run out again.

At worst, sending out ballots provides a workable Plan B in case Plan A proves too hazardous in November.

On top of that, this experiment with government by decree needs to end.

Dallas News: A Dallas blogger’s images of parked planes show just how far the airline industry has fallen. “Andy Luten usually takes pictures of planes in the air, taking off or landing. But in the depths of the COVID-19 downturn, the 37-year-old financial software consultant in Dallas wanted to put his hobby to work showing … Continue reading Dallas News: A Dallas blogger’s images of parked planes show just how far the airline industry has fallen

Facebook has added an interesting security feature called Trusted Contacts that will help you get back into your account if you ever find yourself locked out. For example, you may have forgotten your password and be unable to access your […]

The post What is a Facebook Trusted Contact? appeared first on Tech Tips » Surfnetkids.

Flavio Bartmann writes: Over the last few days, as COVID-19 posed some serious issues for policy makers who, both in the US and elsewhere, have employed statistical models to develop mitigation strategies, a number of non-statisticians have criticized the use of such models as useless or worse. A typical example is this article by Victor […]

I understand the above quote completely. Life would be so much simpler if my work was just reviewed by my personal friends and by people whose careers are tied to mine. Sure, they’d point out problems, but they’d do it in a nice way, quietly. They’d understand that any mistakes I made would never have […]

Suppose I play EJ in chess—I think his rating is something like 2300 and mine is maybe, I dunno, 1400? Anyway, we play, and my only goal is for the games to last as many moves as possible, and EJ’s goal is to checkmate me in the minimal number of moves. Say I have to […]

I originally gave this post the title, “Stigler: The Changing History of Robustness,” but then I was afraid nobody would read it. In the current environment of Move Fast and Break Things, not so many people care about robustness. Also, the widespread use of robustness checks to paper over brittle conclusions has given robustness a […]

We’ve had lots of discussions here and elsewhere online about fundamental flaws in statistics culture: the whole p-value thing, statistics used for confirmation rather than falsification, corruption of the pizzagate variety, soft corruption in which statistics is used in the service of country-club-style backslapping, junk science routinely getting the imprimatur of the National Academy of […]

Segro, Johnny August Sep 14, 1943 - May 3, 2020 Johnny August Segro, 76, of Englewood, FL, died on May 3, 2020. Funeral arrangements .....

Looking for the right plugins to install on your new WordPress site? The flexibility to use plugins to improve and enhance your site is undoubtedly one of WordPress’s best features. But, it can be quite overwhelming to just get started. At the last count, there were over 54,000 WordPress plugins available on WordPress.org and thousands...

On the weekends of June 20 – 21, July 18 – 19, and August 15 – 16, 2009, Grand Canyon National Park and the 146 other National Park Service (NPS) sites around the country that charge entrance fees will offer fee-free entry into the parks. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/news-2009-06-04-fee-free.htm

The Cape Royal Road on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park remains closed as fire management staff continue to manage the Aspen Fire for resource benefits. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/news_2009-08-03_fires.htm

https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/sixteenth-annual-native-american-heritage-days-starts-august-13-on-north-rim-of-grand-canyon.htm

The Cape Royal Road on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park has re-opened with pilot car escorts from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. daily.  https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/news_2009-08-05_fires.htm

The Cape Royal Road on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park is open to visitor traffic. Restricted one-lane traffic on the road will be necessary as fire crews continue to work on clearing potential hazards. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/news_2009-08-06_fires.htm

The Aspen Fire, located on the Walhalla Plateau east of the North Rim developed area continues to meet resource objectives.  https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/news_2009-08-08_fires.htm

On Saturday and Sunday, August 15 and 16, Grand Canyon National Park will join national park units across the country in waiving entrance fees for all park visitors. https://www.nps.gov/grca/learn/news/news_2009-08-10_fee_free.htm