NewzIntel.com

Category: Entertainment

  • MIL-OSI China: TV festival attracts global cultural exchange in entertainment

    Source: China State Council Information Office 3

    The China Pavilion appeared at the Palace of Festivals and Conferences for MIPCOM Cannes in France from Oct 21 to 24, marking the 21st time it has participated in the autumn TV festival, which offers a series of events under the theme “Focus on China, Stories Without Limits”.

    Cao Shumin, director of the National Radio and Television Administration, attended the forum and delivered a speech noting that 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and France. MIPCOM Cannes is the world’s largest market for international studios and distributors of entertainment content. It serves as a window for showcasing audio-video programs and a platform for discussing industry development.

    Cao shared three characteristics of the Chinese audiovisual content market.

    The quality of audio works is continuously improving, with numerous hits emerging, particularly realistic works that reflect common human experiences and emotions that resonate with audiences worldwide.

    Cultural exchanges and cooperation always adhere to inclusiveness and mutual appreciation, using audio/visual works to enhance understanding and communication in promoting the coexistence and development of diverse global cultures.

    The market has enormous potential and unlimited space for cooperation and innovation. Efforts are being made to deeply integrate and develop radio, television and online audiovisual content and dissemination, using technology to empower innovative audiovisual program forms and improve service quality, thus providing broad prospects.

    At the panel session of the forum, Yang Xiaopei, founder of Xixi Pictures from China, discussed the latest trends in international audiovisual content cooperation.

    Works produced by Yang’s team have been broadcast on streaming platforms and TV stations in various countries. By collecting audience comments and feedback, they found audiences in many countries that appreciate Chinese culture and stories, which greatly encourages and motivates her team, she said.

    The China Pavilion covered a total area of 258 square meters, featuring over 30 outstanding Chinese audiovisual content production, distribution and broadcasting organizations, showcasing 179 works.

    The festival gathered over 1,500 leading distribution and production companies from over 100 countries and regions, with more than 320 booths and 31 national and regional pavilions.

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Pacific leaders’ mission to Nouméa – Mapou says New Caledonia at ‘turning point’

    By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific presenter/Bulletin editor

    A three-day fact-finding mission, headed by three Pacific leaders, has wrapped up in Nouméa, and New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou says the French territory is at a “turning point”.

    The semi-autonomous Pacific territory has been riddled with violent unrest since May.

    While tensions have reportedly eased for now, the main political decision-making body for the Pacific region has been in Nouméa this week on a “strictly observational” but “critical mission”.

    New Caledonia’s President Louis Mapou . . . “They willingly shared their own history.” Image: 1ère TV

    Territorial President Louis Mapou told reporters why the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) “troika -plus” visit was so important.

    “They have a shared intention with government members, drawing on their own experience in the region: the Cook Islands, which are in free association with New Zealand; Tonga, a country that was never colonised; and the Solomon Islands, which have experienced interethnic conflicts in the northern part, where youth played a significant role,” he said.

    “And finally, Fiji, which gained independence, decided to withdraw from the Commonwealth, and is now re-evaluating its connection with the British Crown. So, they willingly shared their own history.

    “They pointed out that in each of these histories, it was often the internal decisions of the populations involved that ultimately shaped the choices made about their country’s future.”

    What a pleasant honour to have Hon. Prime Minister @slrabuka welcomed by @LegionEtrangere & @RSMA_NC , writing a poem about his visit in New-Caledonia as a member of the @ForumSEC high level Troïka-Plus information mission . pic.twitter.com/HVVoebqPfA

    — Véronique Roger-Lacan (@rogerlacanv) October 28, 2024

    Hope and perspective
    Local government spokesperson Charles Wea said the visit brought hope and perspective.

    “It is important that that people from New Caledonia can arrive to express their views, and also the political perspectives, in terms of political future,” he said.

    “The process of decolonisation, for example, which is quite a major subject topic that will be in the discussion with a mission”

    Tongan Prime Minister Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni led the PPIF troika-plus delegation — Rabuka was the “plus” factor.

    “We are not there to judge you or to tell them what to do right now. It is a preliminary visit. So, basically, we just want to listen.”

    While it is a fact-finding mission, there are some indisputable facts, such as New Caledonia being on the United Nations Decolonisation List.

    Tuvalu MP Simon Kofe has expressed his thoughts on this.

    Pacific ‘needs to support decolonisation’
    “My position is for independence, we need to continue supporting the decolonisation of the Pacific,” Kofe told RNZ Pacific.

    Hu’akavameiliku’s views were somewhat more diplomatic.

    “I do believe that there is a way of having some sovereignty and control of your country. There are various models in the Pacific. You have Niue and Cook Islands. Then you have American Samoa.

    “We are not the ones who will tell [New Caledonia] what is working and what is not. We respect their sovereignty.”

    But amid the politicking, a Kanak leader from the Protestant Church of Kanaky New Caledonia, Billy Wetewea, said people were struggling.

    In particular, the indigenous population, who were battling inequities in education, employment and health, he said.

    “The destruction that the youth have made since May, was a kind of expression of the frustration towards all of these social injustices,” he said.

    “We are fighting for our humanity. So, it’s for the dignity of our humanity, and our humanity is the humanity of everyone.”

    ‘Neither marginalised nor mistreated’
     The pro-France loyalists, however, have a different perspective.

    “Contrary to what some separatists suggest, the Kanak people are neither marginalised nor mistreated,” they said in a statement.

    “On the contrary, [Kanaky people are] one of the most advantaged in our Oceanian region.”

    Wea said the Pacific leaders had the chance to hear from all sides involved in the unrest.

    The findings will be presented to the 18 Pacific leaders at next year’s leaders meeting.

    This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-Evening Report: Martha Stewart paved the way for influencers. But not everyone finds her brand empowering

    Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Di Yang, Doctoral student, School of Economics, Finance, and Marketing, RMIT University

    From showing us how to cook the perfect turkey to mastering the art of folding a fitted sheet, Martha Stewart’s name has long been a byword for doing things well at home – “how very ‘Martha Stewart’ of you”.

    New Netflix documentary, Martha, promises insights into her extraordinary life – from a teenage model to the original influencer and America’s first self-made female billionaire, with a prison stay and friendship with Snoop Dogg along the way.

    Behind the expertly folded linens and immaculately set tables lies something more.

    Martha Stewart created a brand empire that redefined the domestic lifestyle, monetised it and paved the way for others.

    Beginnings and barriers

    Stewart’s connection to the domestic arts began early.

    Raised in New Jersey, she learned essential homemaking skills like cooking and sewing from her mother, while her father introduced her to gardening.

    She studied art and architectural history yet Stewart started her career as a stockbroker. But her passion for the domestic realm led her to entrepreneurship.

    As she once reflected, “the life of the homemaker was more interesting to me than the life of Wall Street”.

    In 1972, she launched a catering business from the suburbs of Connecticut. It soon gained recognition for its elegant food presentations. A publisher client led to her 1982 book, Entertaining. It included notes for how to prepare a clambake for 30, a cocktail party for 200 and ranked presentation as highly as the food itself.

    Book success sealed a partnership with Kmart in 1987 and eventually took her homewares brand into millions of American homes.

    By 1999, she took her company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (which encompassed her television show, magazines, websites and merchandising product lines) public, becoming America’s first self-made female billionaire – albeit momentarily.

    A few years later, Stewart was embroiled in scandal. She received a five-month prison sentence for insider trading and obstruction of justice. Many expected this to mark the end of her career – but Stewart defied the odds.

    Breaking new ground

    After her release from prison, she didn’t shy away from her past. Instead, she continued sharing skills including those she honed during her time at prison camp – whether it was crocheting or experimenting with new recipes. As always, Stewart seized every opportunity to expand her brand.

    Her genius lies in her ability to “sense a void in the culture” and turn a personal touch into commercial success.

    Since selling her namesake brand, Stewart has stayed in the spotlight, sometimes sharing it with rapper Snoop Dogg. The unlikely duo struck up a seemingly genuine friendship that produced a television potluck series, appearances and prison jokes.

    She continues to connect with millions of followers on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where her long-term influence is perhaps most evident.

    The OG influencer

    Stewart’s living legacy is unmistakable in today’s digital world. Scrolling through social media, you’ll find traces of her in meticulously arranged tablescapes or perfectly organised cabinets.

    Popular “cleanfluencers” like Mrs Hinch and Australia’s Mama Mila have built massive followings by turning domestic tasks into visually captivating content.

    Minimalist tidy maven Marie Kondo took the world by storm, with her philosophy of keeping only what “sparks joy”. Her global brand follows Stewart’s signature collection model. Stewart’s clean and white aesthetic and multichannel branding can be seen in Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop too.

    When housework is repackaged as life-changing and transformative, it transcends private duty to become a public, respected and potentially profitable business.

    But is this feminism?

    Yet, the rise of domestic lifestyle influencers also raises critical questions in feminist circles.

    As far back as Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, published in 1949, housework has been seen as part of the trap of domestic femininity.

    Figures like Stewart may represent success stories in economic terms. But their ventures risk reinforcing the stereotype that homemaking is inherently women’s work, often packaged alongside an ever-growing array of consumer products designed to perfect it.

    Stewart’s vision of domestic success – immaculate homes, flawless dinners, and perfect organisation – sets a standard that is unattainable for most. Scholars argue her media empire presents an upper-class fantasy, where the appearance of a wealthy lifestyle is emphasised over the reality of it.

    Focusing on domesticity is not inherently regressive, but what happens when the standards of success are too high to reach?

    The “solution” is often hidden in the consumerism trap, with women endlessly buying goods to chase an idealised lifestyle.

    Stewart’s embrace of perfectionism fuelled her success. In her words, “being a perfectionist can be profitable”. Yet for women and consumers, the pursuit of “Martha Stewartness” often feels out of reach.

    Martha is streaming on Netflix from today.

    Di Yang does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

    – ref. Martha Stewart paved the way for influencers. But not everyone finds her brand empowering – https://theconversation.com/martha-stewart-paved-the-way-for-influencers-but-not-everyone-finds-her-brand-empowering-241802

    MIL OSI Analysis – EveningReport.nz –

  • MIL-OSI China: 2nd ‘Smile of Cambodia’ event kicks off at famed Angkor Wat

    Source: China State Council Information Office 3

    The second “Smile of Cambodia” event was held in front of the famed Angkor Wat here in northwest Siem Reap province on Tuesday, aiming at promoting culture and the world heritage site to tourists.

    Angkor Wat is a major ancient temple in the UNESCO-listed Angkor Archaeological Park.

    Speaking at the opening ceremony of the two-day event, Phoeurng Sackona, minister of culture and fine arts, said the event was designed to promote culture and enhance tourism to attract international visitors to the Angkor.

    “This event has not only promoted Cambodia’s arts, culture, tradition and custom, but also contributed to revitalizing the tourism sector, which is one of the key catalysts for the kingdom’s economic growth,” she said.

    Sackona said the event was hosted by the APSARA National Authority (ANA), a government agency responsible for managing, safeguarding and preserving the Angkor Archaeological Park, in collaboration with the Khmer Artists Association.

    According to the ANA, activities during the two-day event include exhibitions of local cuisine and souvenirs, entertainment programs, and cultural shows, among others.

    The 401-square-km Angkor Archaeological Park, which is Cambodia’s most popular tourist destination, is home to 91 ancient temples, built from the ninth to the 13th centuries.

    The ancient park attracted almost 700,000 international visitors during the January-September period of 2024, earning a gross revenue of 32.5 million U.S. dollars from ticket sales, according to the state-owned Angkor Enterprise. 

    MIL OSI China News –

  • MIL-OSI Asia-Pac: LCQ12: Strive and Rise Programme

    Source: Hong Kong Government special administrative region

         Following is a question by the Hon Martin Liao and a written reply by the Secretary for Labour and Welfare, Mr Chris Sun, in the Legislative Council today (October 30):
     
    Question:
     
         Regarding the second round of the Strive and Rise Programme (the Programme), will the Government inform this Council:
     
    (1) given that the Strive and Rise Alumni Club (Alumni Club) under the Programme has organised a number of exchange tours to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and also offers local job tasting or internship programmes for Alumni Club members aged between 16 and 21, and it is reported that some Mainland multinational enterprises intend to hire mentee graduates of the Programme, whether the authorities will consider extending the job tasting or internship programmes of the Alumni Club to GBA, so that mentees may gain a deeper understanding of the development of GBA at an early stage and widen their horizons; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;
     
    (2) as it is reported that some mentors in the first round of the Programme were unable to spare time and participate in the activities with their mentees due to their busy schedules, and remained unaware of the emotional issues among the mentees by the end of the first round of the Programme, whether the authorities will make appropriate adjustments to the mentorship mechanism in the second round of the Programme to accommodate mentees with special needs and arrange for the mentors to receive training first, so as to help the mentors identify and address the emotional needs of the mentees; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;
     
    (3) as it is learnt that a number of interest classes offered to mentees under the basic training sessions of the Programme are very popular among the mentees, but the costs of the interest classes in sport, musical instruments, art, etc, are too high that it is difficult to meet mentees’ long-term learning needs despite a subsidy totalling $10,000 is provided to them in two phases under the Programme, whether the authorities will introduce measures and collaborate with schools and various sectors where practicable, so as to support mentees in continuing to develop their interests; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that; and
     
    (4) as there are views that the Child Development Fund is similar to the Programme in nature and content, for example, both with the elements such as “personal development plan” and “mentorship”, whether the Government will consider reviewing their contents and make appropriate integration or project collaboration, so as to optimise resources; if so, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
     
    Reply:
     
    President,
     
         The second cohort of the Strive and Rise Programme (the Programme) was launched in October 2023, with a number of enhancement measures introduced with reference to the results from the impact assessment conducted by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University research team on the programme’s first cohort. The enhancement measures include increasing the number of mentees from 2 800 to 4 000 with the coverage expanded to Secondary 4 students, enriching the variety of group activities (such as organising more Mainland study and exchange tours), introducing mentorship groups, and establishing the Strive and Rise Alumni Club (the Alumni Club) for graduates.
     
         The reply to the question raised by the Hon Martin Liao is as follows:
     
    (1) Graduates of the first and second cohorts of the Programme will automatically become members of the Alumni Club established in November 2023. It organises different types of activities for the alumni, including exchange activities to the Mainland, with a view to broadening their social network and horizons, and sustaining the effectiveness of the programme. Also, the Alumni Club provides short-term five-day job tasting/internship opportunities for alumni aged 16 or above to assist them in identifying their talents and career aspirations. It will continue, in collaboration with supporting organisations, to line up Mainland study and exchange tours as well as various experiential activities, including visits to workplaces of different enterprises, to help alumni understand the development and prospects of different industries on the Mainland, widen their horizons and set goals for their future.
     
    (2) One of the enhancement measures implemented in the second cohort of the Programme is the introduction of mentorship groups on top of the one-to-one mentor-mentee pairing, under which two to three pairs of mentors and mentees would form a mentorship group to participate in group activities and exchanges for better interaction, sharing and support. When matching mentors and mentees, consideration will be given to the latter’s career aspirations and hobbies/interests, as well as their gender, language and special needs (e.g. special educational needs (SENs)). The programme also provided different kinds of training for mentors, including basic and advanced training, and skills for interacting with mentees with SENs or from ethnic minority groups and their parents. If mentors encounter difficulties in offering guidance to mentees, they may contact the respective District Organisers which will arrange social workers to render support as appropriate.
     
    (2) The enhanced Programme consists of a one-year intensive foundation programme and two years of activities in the Alumni Club. In the first year of the Programme, a start-up sum of $5,000 is awarded to student participants for implementing their personal development plans under the guidance of their mentors, whereas a scholarship of $5,000 is further awarded to student participants upon completion of the Programme for their own deployment by applying the financial planning skills acquired. Graduates will automatically become members of the Alumni Club and can continue to participate in its whole-person development activities covering six major aspects, namely Financial Education, Career and Life Planning, Leadership Development, Sports and Healthy Lifestyle, Arts and Cultural Expressions, and Social Networking and Civic Engagement, as well as job tasting/internship opportunities, with a view to broadening their social network and horizons while continuing to facilitate their development of talents and interests.
     
    (4) In 2023, the Social Welfare Department completed a review of the Child Development Fund Programme (CDF Programme) to enhance its uniqueness and ensure effective use of resources in supporting underprivileged children. Relevant enhancement measures have been introduced to the projects launched in March 2024. For example, target participants have been changed from students of Primary 4 to Secondary 4 to students of Primary 3 to Primary 6, so that underprivileged children can benefit at an early developmental stage from the CDF Programme, including development of savings habits, good characters and positive values through the three components of Personal Development Plan, Mentorship, and Targeted Savings. The enhanced CDF Programme complements the Strive and Rise Programme which focuses on supporting Secondary 1 to 4 students from underprivileged families. The two programmes complement each other in catering to the needs of Primary and Secondary students from underprivileged families at their different developmental stages.

    MIL OSI Asia Pacific News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: What performances to go to with children. Yuri Kuklachev’s choice

    Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

    Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

    On the stages of Moscow theaters you can see a variety of performances for young viewers – from classic fairy tales to modern works. People’s Artist of the RSFSR Yuri Kuklachev tells us which productions will give bright impressions to children and teenagers.

    “For miracles to happen, you need to go towards them yourself! Therefore, I invite everyone to the most extraordinary performances that give hope, charge with vigor and excellent mood. In these productions, both fairy-tale heroes and modern characters that we meet every day come to life, the action is filled with music, songs, dances and incredible circus tricks, and some even involve furry artists of the Cat Theater. I advise you not to miss it and enjoy it with the whole family!” says Yuri Kuklachev.

    “The Little Humpbacked Horse” at the Moscow Children’s Variety Theatre

    Address: Baumanskaya street, house 32, building 1

    Dates: November 10, December 1

    Age limit: 6

    The musical theatrical performance in folk style at the Moscow Children’s Variety Theatre was created based on the fairy tale of the same name by Pyotr Yershov. Together with the main characters, Ivan and his faithful friend and assistant the Little Humpbacked Horse, the audience will visit a fair, the royal palace and even the seabed. The familiar story from childhood will be revealed in a new way by musical numbers combining folk motifs and modern sounds.

    You can buy tickets on mos.ru.

    “Cats Show” at the Kuklachev Cat Theatre

    Address: Kutuzovsky Prospect, Building 25

    Dates: November 12, 19, 20, 21, 22, December 1

    Age limit: 6

    A circus troupe arrives in town: magicians, clowns, trainers, acrobats and dancers. The cunning and wily director of the program meets a tramp on the street and offers him to become a handyman in his team. Once in the circus, the hero gets acquainted with life behind the scenes – its intrigues and rivalries, friendship and love.

    The production includes illusionists and, of course, four-legged artists – cats and dogs.

    You can buy tickets on mos.ru.

    “Fedorino grief” at the Children’s Musical Theatre of the Young Actor

    Address: Malaya Dmitrovka street, house 8, building 4

    Dates: November 17, December 7, January 26

    Age limit: 0

    Fedora is such a slob and a dirty girl that her things don’t want to live with her anymore: the sieve and trough have galloped away across the fields and meadows, the shovel and broom have gone, the iron and saucepan have run away. There’s nothing to do – Fedora will have to go looking for them. The actors on stage will portray frying pans, cups, spoons and even cats, and the audience will learn what to do so that things don’t want to leave their owners.

    The play was based on the fairy tale of the same name in verse by Korney Chukovsky.

    Tickets – on mos.ru.

    “In a Busy Place” at the Tereza Durova Theatre

    Address: Pavlovskaya street, building 6

    Date: November 28

    Age limit: 16

    The play by Alexander Ostrovsky was transferred to the stage of the Tereza Durova Theatre by director Irina Pakhomova, presenting a plot at the intersection of melodrama, comedy and detective, and conveying the bustle of the inn with bright colours and folk motifs.

    You won’t get bored in a busy place – there is carousing, robbery, treachery and love. While they are treating you in one room, they are robbing you in another. In every impulse, good or bad, there is spiritual passion and true Russian fearlessness.

    You can buy tickets on mos.ru.

    Samurai Sword and Venetian Carnival. Tereza Durova on plays in which children act

    “Visiting Grandfather Durov” at the “Grandfather Durov’s Corner” theater

    Address: Durova street, house 4, building 2

    Date: November 21

    Age limit: 0

    The performance dedicated to the founder of the theater, the famous trainer and artist Vladimir Durov, is created in the format of a divertissement – numbers not connected by a common plot will follow one another. But they are united, of course, by love for animals. Children will get acquainted with the actors of “Grandfather Durov’s Corner”: dogs, cats, goats, raccoons, a fennec fox, ferrets, crows and monkeys.

    Tickets – on mos.ru.

    “The Tale of the Soldier and the Firebird and the Stupid Queen” at the Moscow Children’s Fairytale Theatre

    Address: Bolshoy Fakelny Lane, Building 18, Bldg. 2

    Date: November 2

    Age limit: 6

    The main character of the production, the Soldier, is a man who is experienced, but trusting, lives with an open heart. But whether the stupid queen has a heart is a big question, she is so greedy, stupid and stupid. But in good fairy tales, good always prevails, so the Soldier will overcome all the tests: he will defeat the deceitful merchant and the treacherous minister, and will also meet love – the beautiful Mashenka.

    You can buy tickets on mos.ru.

    “Well Done, Tom Thumb!” at the Moscow Puppet Theatre

    Address: Bazhova street, house 9

    Date: November 17

    Age limit: 6

    Many people know the tale of Tom Thumb in the version by the Brothers Grimm, and the Moscow Puppet Theater based it on Nikolai Shuvalov’s play. Together with the young and brave spectators, the cheerful and resourceful hero will stroll along new paths of the famous story and reveal the meaning of the proverb “Small but precious.”

    You can buy tickets on mos.ru.

    “Alice in Wonderland” at the Folklore Center “Moscow”

    Address: Barclay Street, Building 9

    Dates: November 10 and 23, December 7

    Age limit: 6

    Gleb Matveychuk’s musical based on the famous fairy tale by Lewis Carroll will surely appeal not only to children, but also to their parents.

    Alice sees a dream full of metaphors, riddles and unusual adventures. Will she be able to show courage, bravery and perseverance to find the way home, win the fight with the cruel Red Queen and wake up?

    Viewers will see a story of first love, attempts to find answers to important everyday and philosophical questions, as well as an unexpected twist on a familiar plot.

    Tickets – on mos.ru.

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    Please note; This information is raw content directly from the information source. It is accurate to what the source is stating and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    https://vvv.mos.ru/nevs/item/145926073/

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI Australia: Interview with Loretta Hart, 94.7 The Pulse

    Source: Australian Ministers 1

    LORETTA HART, HOST: As we celebrate 50 years of community radio in Australia, we’re featuring women doing great things in the sector and those making an impact on it. One such woman is my next guest, someone who is a champion for all things community broadcasting, the Honourable Michelle Rowland, Minister for Communications. Welcome to the program.

    MICHELLE ROWLAND, MINISTER FOR COMMUNICATIONS: Great to be with you. 

    HART:  And we’ve also been joined by Libby Coker in the studio as well, our Federal Member for Corangamite. Welcome, Libby.

    LIBBY COKER, FEDERAL MEMBER FOR CORANGAMITE: Welcome to you too. It’s great to be with you.

    HART: And look, I can’t go past that we actually got our station manager. Leo. Leo, welcome back from long service leave.

    LEO RENKIN, 94.7 STATION MANAGER: Thank you, Loretta. It’s been a very entertaining first day.

    HART: Absolutely. So, Michelle, you know, we know that the Labor Government introduced community radio back in the ‘70s. Can you share with us the importance of community broadcasting and radio, what- the importance it holds for the Government of today?

    ROWLAND: It’s absolutely an essential part of our media ecosystem, and I think it is opportune to reflect when Gough Whitlam started community broadcasting 50 years ago, it was referred to as experimental. So this was a step into the unknown about what can be done with this very valuable resource we call spectrum. I think it was one of the wisest moves that’s been made in communications regulation in this country, because where community broadcasting fits in in this whole ecosystem is it provides the heavy lifting that’s been done on media diversity. We are one of the most concentrated media ownership markets in the world, and to have hundreds of community broadcasters right around Australia serving localism, supported by volunteers, having connections with community.

    I’m really privileged to be here, just seeing the connections that you have with individuals, with community, how you reflect the local area. You try and think of another media format that can do that. You can’t. You can’t do it on a digital platform. You can’t do it in a profit making commercial broadcasting sense. It’s done through people who want to make a difference. Meeting Marwa, earlier from Syria, one of your stars. Clearly, that’s been life changing for her and she’s found a place here. I just think that says it all. It says everything about community broadcasting, community radio. It really does bring people together. Congratulations to The Pulse for clearly doing it so well. You really are the epitome of why we support this sector.

    HART:  Thank you so much. You used the word experimental, and I know we’re 50 years on, but I would say it still feels experimental. We have this opportunity to bring in new voices, to try new things to be nimble, which is such an exciting place for us to be. I’m wondering, Michelle, you know, as we move into this on demand lifestyle, I watch everything these days on – when it suits me on the TV, people are into their podcasts. Where do you see community radio fitting into this on demand space?

    ROWLAND: I think community radio is going to continue to innovate. Everyone thought radio was going to die with the advent of the iPod and then the iPhone, but community radio has really still found its place. You can find the app; you can listen to it anywhere you want. We’ve introduced a prominence framework in Australia as well to make local content easier to find. I think that the sector will continue to adapt, and I think it does it through two ways. Firstly, it is that local element, but it also is able to connect. It’s two-way. It’s not television. It’s two-way. When you have those personalities that are able to engage, continue to innovate through innovations like podcasting. Podcasting is one of those things, you know, it took off a few years ago, as did- we saw it with the ABC developing iView to have a library. Community broadcasting is doing the same thing, and it’s that kind of innovation that is going to keep it strong. But the key thing here, I’m sure Libby will agree, you need people. You need people, which goes to the whole reason why we’re doing the first really deep sustainability dive into the sector. You can’t operate for profit, but sponsorships are harder to come by. Volunteerism is on the decline, that’s just a fact. So we’ve got to look at new ways of support, and you’ve got to be able to attract people to be part of this. You’re doing it so well here. I could tell as soon as I walked in – you’re very lucky, Libby, to be representing such a special electorate.

    COKER: Yeah. Thanks, Michelle. I’m very fond of The Pulse. It’s been a place where people can come together and it fills a unique niche in this region. We have commercial radio, but we are also quite limited in our range of media. So if you want to have an in-depth interview on an issue, you really need to come to The Pulse to do that. I wish you all the best, and hope you continue to go from strength to strength and be here for another 50 years. It’s an impressive effort.

    HART:  Thank you, Libby. We will hold you to helping us.

    COKER: Yes, I know you will.

    LEO RENKIN CO-HOST: Just one thing that we haven’t really mentioned is the people who go on from the community radio station as well. Like we have Stefan, who’s gone back to Serbia and now presents TV over there. We also have Michelle Rimmer, you might see who’s an ABC reporter over in the UK – they all get their start somewhere like here. It’s very important because most commercial stations and there’s very limited opportunities at the ABC to get experience, and without it, there would be a lot of people who couldn’t go on and make a career out of radio. I think it’s one of the most underrated, important things that happen, not only radio, TV they go onto as well.

    HART: Couldn’t agree more.

    RENKIN: Yeah. That’s part of I think that thing is getting harder and harder to get experience, particularly for people in the media. I think that’s one of the things that we often forget about. You know, coming to a place like we’ve spoken about Marwa this morning, coming to a place where you can then get a chance to go ahead and do those things in media. Without it, as you mentioned before, it’s not a very diverse sector in the media field.

    ROWLAND: I think it’s great that people who are in community broadcasting, like Rove McManus, you know, he got his start on community TV. They go on to great things. But we also want them to stay.

    RENKIN: Exactly.

    ROWLAND: To nurture others as well. So it becomes a virtuous cycle.

    RENKIN: That’s right. They get picked very quickly, yeah.

    HART:  That’s right. I keep telling Marwa not to be so good because SBS is going to find her. She’s our most downloaded program and does an amazing job for her community. But I think that’s right. I mean, and we’re really proud of the links that we’re making with Deakin to support young journalists, students, and those in communications and marketing to come in. I want to give a shout out we had a young man, Cooper Watkins. Cooper came and did an eight-week intro to broadcasting program with us. Just on the weekend, he hosted an hour program with three interviews, and then on Monday, did six interviews for a two-hour program. And he’s just finished his journalism degree. But he is eager to get his hands on these buttons, to get behind the microphone and to get experience.

    So you’re right, Leo. I think that whilst we can have diverse voices, we can have underrepresented stories being given some air, but we’re also a training ground. But you’re right, Michelle, we want people to stay as well. Yeah.

    RENKIN: I’ve got Loretta chained to the desk actually.

    [Laughter]

    I think one of the underrated things about community radio is, like we’ve seen this morning, a diverse group of people coming together, and I think that’s very important for social cohesion as well. We often think of everyone in the community being different, but a place where they can come together and be different is a very special thing to have.

    ROWLAND: Couldn’t agree more.

    HART:  Michelle, just lastly, what can we look forward to- as community broadcasters, what can we look forward to the Albanese Government supporting and providing in this space?

    ROWLAND: Well, I want to reiterate that this is a government that doesn’t just say we support community broadcasting. We’ve backed that up with $23 million in funding. We want to continue to make sure that this sector remains strong. The first Bill I actually presented to the Parliament as Minister was on community broadcasting to help ease some of that regulatory burden. We have the sustainability review that’s being finalised by my Department now. I think it’s been really important to go out and to consult with the sector about what their needs are. When that comes through, I’m sure it will have some really practical suggestions in there for reform.

    But as Libby will tell you too, you know, we want to be judged on our delivery. It’s really something to be able to go to- I’ve lost count of how many community radio stations I’ve been to or have been on around Australia. But I want to be clear to your listeners. We’re a Government of delivery. We’re not afraid of the hard reforms. There are hard things happening in the media at the moment. This sector is under great challenge through the multinational digital platforms, under great stress through just the transition as well. It’s not the advertising market that it used to be. It is hard. There has to be that adaptation across mainstream media, but also by every part of the ecosystem, including community and just discussions today. This is an area that’s not without its challenges, even here in Geelong.

    But I can give you this commitment that we want to follow through on ensuring sustainability. We are going to have to make some hard decisions. But you can be assured that with good people like Libby backing you up in the Parliament as well, I think that this is a universally supported sector. It’s one that actually goes right across the aisle. You get people from regional areas and from metro areas who do support community radio. So I think that the proposals that we will put up, I’m confident that they’ll have strong support. There’s always a need to do more. Let’s be clear. I want to do expectations management. There’s always a need to do more. With hundreds of community radio stations across Australia with so many thousands of volunteers, we do have to remember I think come back to first principles. This is the fourth estate. It’s about making sure that authentic Australian voices, entertainment, and news get out there. We’re in an era of mis- and disinformation that is harmful to our democracy. This fourth estate that you support here is the front row of that fight against it. That’s one of the key reasons why I’m so passionate about it.

    RENKIN: Can I just add to that, Loretta?

    HART: Yeah, well, you can, but you’ve got 30 seconds.

    RENKIN: Sorry, 30 seconds. We found in COVID that we did have enormous amount of people come to us from different ethnic groups and want us to promote the vaccination programs and things that were going on because the only information they were referring to was online stuff, information from their own country. So for example, they were getting information from Croatia about what was going on, and then trying to think that was what was going to go on in Australia. Well, it was completely wrong. So we had some of our presenters come in and say, we have to get this message out, we have to get this message out. I think that’s one of the things that we- you know, when you said before about being the fourth pillar, I suppose, is that we can provide information from local community groups and for the local community groups, the best thing they know is word of mouth. And if it comes from one of the representatives, and then-

    ROWLAND: They trust. 

    RENKIN: They trust, exactly.

    HART:  They do indeed. It’s been a very fantastic conversation this morning. Thanks so much to Leo. Thanks very much to Libby Coker. And also thanks so much, Michelle, for being here, our Federal Minister for Communications. It’s been wonderful to have you in the studio with us.

    ROWLAND: Absolute pleasure.

    COKER: Thank you.

    MIL OSI News –

  • MIL-OSI Russia: Construction of the International Hockey Academy continues in the Mnevnikovskaya floodplain

    Translation. Region: Russian Federation –

    Source: Moscow Government – Government of Moscow –

    As part of the formation of a sports cluster in the Mnevnikovskaya floodplain, the construction of the Alexander Ovechkin International Hockey Academy continues. This was reported by the Minister of the Moscow Government, head of the capital’s Department of Urban Development Policy Vladislav Ovchinsky.

    “The main building of the Alexander Ovechkin International Hockey Academy will have training grounds and two ice arenas. One of them will have an auditorium for 1,500 seats. A multifunctional conference hall will also be equipped here. A hotel for athletes and a recovery and rehabilitation center are being built on the territory of the academy. In addition, as part of the formation of a sports cluster, they plan to build a beach sports center and a year-round water recreation and entertainment complex here,” explained Vladislav Ovchinsky.

    In addition, Mnevnikovskaya floodplain will have well-equipped tennis courts, volleyball, streetball, and workout courts. They will also build an ice and multi-purpose sports palace, an ice palace, a multi-functional building with a curling arena, a billiards palace, a rowing base, and a building for the CSKA basketball club.

    “A large sports cluster is being formed on the territory of the Mnevnikovskaya floodplain, for the construction of facilities for which the city is providing land as part of the implementation of large-scale investment projects. Thus, over three hectares have been allocated for the construction of the Alexander Ovechkin International Hockey Academy, almost 2.5 hectares for a multifunctional ice palace for the Russian curling team, over 3.6 hectares for a complex with two ice arenas, martial arts and gymnastics halls, and a tennis center will appear on an area of 2.2 hectares,” said the Minister of the Moscow Government, Head of the Department of City Property of the capital

    Maxim Gaman.

    To implement large-scale investment projects, investors are provided with land without bidding. In addition to sports facilities, production complexes, innovation centers, social institutions, transport, commercial and other facilities can receive the status of such a project. For their construction, the city provides plots for rent for five years.

    On the instructions of Sergei Sobyanin, the city is paying special attention to the quality of sports infrastructure facilities. As noted by the Chairman of the Committee for State Construction Supervision of Moscow (Mosgosstroynadzor) Anton Slobodchikov, since the start of construction of the academy last summer, Mosgosstroynadzor has conducted five on-site inspections. Inspectors assessed the volume of work performed, the organization of the construction site, and compliance with safety requirements. Specialists from the subordinate Expertise Center were involved in the inspections. They conducted instrumental studies of the quality of structures and materials used, as well as their compliance with design documentation.

    Earlier Sergei Sobyanin reportedthat after the completion of the integrated development of the Mnevnikovskaya floodplain territory, a sports cluster with a total area of about 500 thousand square meters will appear here.

    Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    Please note; This information is raw content directly from the information source. It is accurate to what the source is stating and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

    https://vvv.mos.ru/nevs/item/145891073/

    MIL OSI Russia News –

  • MIL-OSI: Captivision Announces Venture at Dream Hollywood Hotel

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    MIAMI and SEOUL, Korea, Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Captivision Inc. (“Captivision” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: CAPT), a pioneer manufacturer of architectural media glass and innovative LED solution provider, today announced its first collaboration with the Dream Hollywood hotel in Los Angeles. Crescent Hotels & Resorts, a leading hotel management company, manages Dream Hollywood. The property is part of Hyatt’s global portfolio of hotels, under the Dream Hotels brand.

    The collaboration catalyzes Captivision’s expansion into digital out-of-home (“OOH”) in a high-profile Los Angeles location with extraordinary partners. Unlike traditional LED signage, Captivision is creating a uniquely transparent and vibrant digital display, generating a new recurring revenue stream for the Company and its partners. This groundbreaking venture is emblematic of Captivision’s broadening business model as a trusted solution provider featuring highly innovative and transformational technology. The Dream Hollywood display is expected to generate in excess of three million social media impressions annually. Playing a pivotal role in the creation and operation of the OOH digital media at the Dream Hollywood, California-based company, Integrated Market Optimization, Inc. and Smart City Labs, have partnered with Captivision to bring their expertise and industry-leading solutions to this high-profile project.

    “Joining forces with Dream Hollywood is a pivotal venture for our company in multiple respects,” said Gary Garrabrant, Chairman and CEO of Captivision. “Captivision is quickly becoming a solution provider across the LED product spectrum generating entirely new revenue streams with valued partners and clients. We believe this collaboration will kickstart an exciting new chapter of growth for Captivision in the United States and globally.”

    Dream Hollywood (Façade Render)

    Captivision’s transparent and non-transparent LED media solutions provide a versatile and dynamic platform showcasing high-resolution content without compromising architectural integrity and user experience. This seminal venture combines cutting-edge physical and streaming technology to generate social media driven advertising revenue, the first of what promises to be many meaningful applications with recognized and valued partners and clients.

    About Captivision
    Captivision is a pioneering manufacturer of media glass, combining IT building materials with architectural glass. The product has a boundless array of applications including entertainment media, information media, cultural and artistic content as well as marketing use cases. Captivision can transform any glass façade into a transparent media screen with real time live stream capability. Captivision is fast becoming a solution provider across the LED product spectrum.

    Captivision’s media glass and solutions have been implemented in hundreds of locations globally across sports stadiums, entertainment venues, casinos and hotels, convention centers, office and retail properties, and airports. Learn more at http://www.captivision.com.

    About Crescent Hotels & Resorts
    Crescent Hotels & Resorts is an award-winning, nationally recognized, operator of hotels and resorts with over 120 properties in the United States and Canada. Crescent is one of the few elite management companies approved to operate upper-upscale and luxury hotels under the brand families of Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt. Crescent also works a collection of independent and lifestyle properties under the Latitudes Collection umbrella. These properties include PGA National Resort, The Opus Westchester, Autograph Collection, and NOPSI Hotel New Orleans. Powered by innovative, forward thinking experts, Latitudes is a modern management platform for lifestyle hotels and resorts where creative concepts connect with modern travelers from urban boutique hotels to oceanside resorts.

    Crescent’s clients include premiere REITs, private equity firms and major developers. For more information, please visit www.crescenthotels.com and www.latitudesbycrescent.com or connect with Crescent on LinkedIn.

    Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
    This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements relating to expectations for future financial performance, business strategies, or expectations for the Company’s respective businesses. These statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of the management of the Company. Although the Company believes that its plans, intentions and expectations reflected in or suggested by these forward-looking statements are reasonable, it cannot assure you that it will achieve or realize these plans, intentions or expectations. These statements constitute projections, forecasts, and forward-looking statements, and are not guarantees of performance. Such statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts. When used in this press release, words such as “believe”, “can”, “continue”, “expect”, “forecast”, “may”, “plan”, “project”, “should”, “will” or the negative of such terms, and similar expressions, may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that a statement is not forward-looking.

    The risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: (1) the ability to raise financing in the future and to comply with restrictive covenants related to indebtedness; (2) the ability to realize the benefits expected from the business combination and the Company’s strategic direction; (3) the significant market adoption, demand and opportunities in the construction and digital out of home media industries for the Company’s products; (4) the ability to maintain the listing of the Company’s ordinary shares and warrants on Nasdaq; (5) the ability of the Company to remain competitive in the fourth generation architectural media glass industry in the face of future technological innovations; (6) the ability of the Company to execute its international expansion strategy; (7) the ability of the Company to protect its intellectual property rights; (8) the profitability of the Company’s larger projects, which are subject to protracted sales cycles; (9) whether the raw materials, components, finished goods, and services used by the Company to manufacture its products will continue to be available and will not be subject to significant price increases; (10) the IT, vertical real estate, and large format wallscape modified regulatory restrictions or building codes; (11) the ability of the Company’s manufacturing facilities to meet their projected manufacturing costs and production capacity; (12) the future financial performance of the Company; (13) the emergence of new technologies and the response of the Company’s customer base to those technologies; (14) the ability of the Company to retain or recruit, or to effect changes required in, its officers, key employees, or directors; (15) the ability of the Company to comply with laws and regulations applicable to its business; and (16) other risks and uncertainties set forth under the section of the Company’s Annual Report on Form 20-F entitled “Risk Factors.”

    These forward-looking statements are based on information available as of the date of this press release and the Company’s management team’s current expectations, forecasts, and assumptions, and involve a number of judgments, known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside the control of the Company and its directors, officers, and affiliates. Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company management team’s views as of any subsequent date. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update, add or to otherwise correct any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect events or circumstances after the date they were made, whether as a result of new information, future events, inaccuracies that become apparent after the date hereof or otherwise, except as may be required under applicable securities laws.

    Media Contact:
    Dukas Linden Public Relations
    +1 212.704.7385
    captivision@dlpr.com

    Investor Contact:
    Gateway Group
    Ralf Esper
    +1 949.574.3860
    CAPT@gateway-grp.com

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/4835d4a9-4083-475d-996e-b09ab5decf06

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Bitfarms Nominates Andrew J. Chang for Election to the Board of Directors

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    This news release constitutes a “designated news release” for the purposes of the Company’s prospectus supplement dated March 8, 2024, to its short form base shelf prospectus dated November 10, 2023.

    TORONTO, Ontario and BROSSARD, Québec, Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Bitfarms Ltd. (NASDAQ/TSX: BITF) (“Bitfarms” or the “Company”), a global leader in vertically integrated Bitcoin data center operations, today announced that it has nominated Andrew J. Chang for election to its Board of Directors (the “Board”) at the Special Meeting of shareholders to be held on November 20, 2024 at 4:00p.m. Eastern Time (the “Special Meeting”).

    Bitfarms Special Meeting of Shareholders
    Pursuant to the Settlement Agreement between the Company and Riot Platforms, Inc. dated September 23, 2024, at the Special Meeting, shareholders will be asked to approve an expansion of the Board from five members to six members, to elect an independent director nominated by the Board to serve as the sixth member of the Board, to ratify the Company’s shareholder rights plan adopted on July 24, 2024, and to conduct such other business as may properly come before the Special Meeting.

    Shareholders and guests can access the virtual meeting using this link. Additional information regarding the Special Meeting, including how to vote, is available via the proxy materials disseminated to shareholders by Bitfarms and as filed on SEDAR+ at http://www.sedarplus.ca and on EDGAR at http://www.sec.gov/EDGAR.

    Nomination of Andrew J. Chang to Bitfarms Board of Directors
    Bitfarms’ Governance and Nominating Committee conducted a thorough director search process and held interviews with several qualified candidates, and, along with the Board, unanimously supports the nomination of Andrew J. Chang for election at the Special Meeting.

    Mr. Chang is a 20-year veteran of the technology industry with experience as an investor, operating executive, entrepreneur, and advisor. He was a founding partner of Liberty City Ventures, a leading venture capital fund. Mr. Chang also served as Chief Operating Officer of Paxos, a blockchain infrastructure platform that has powered solutions for PayPal, Stripe, and more. At Paxos, he helped grow the team from 8 to 190 employees and launched the first regulated blockchain focused trust company and the first regulated stablecoin in the U.S. During that time, Paxos raised $500M in capital and its most recent valuation is $2.4 billion.

    Before joining Paxos, Andrew served as a Lead Strategic Partner Development Manager at Google, working in business development for display ad products. Prior to that, he was the Chief Operating Officer of ConditionOne and an associate at TechStars (New York). He also has experience managing innovation in research, analytics and digital media at WPP PLC-owned Kantar Video and at 360i, a digital marketing agency. 

    Andrew earned his MBA from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business, where he was President of the student body, and a BS from Boston College.

    Brian Howlett, Independent Chairman of the Board, said, “The Bitfarms Board is committed to strong corporate governance and recognizes that a diverse set of skills is required to effectively oversee the execution of the Company’s strategic initiatives. Andrew is an impressive technology industry veteran whose experience and knowledge is highly complementary to that of our current Board. We believe he will be instrumental as we execute our aggressive growth plan, and we look forward to leveraging his expertise to maximize value for Bitfarms shareholders.”

    About Bitfarms Ltd.

    Founded in 2017, Bitfarms is a global vertically integrated Bitcoin data center company that contributes its computational power to one or more mining pools from which it receives payment in Bitcoin. Bitfarms develops, owns, and operates vertically integrated data centers with in-house management and company-owned electrical engineering, installation service, and multiple onsite technical repair centers. The Company’s proprietary data analytics system delivers best-in-class operational performance and uptime.

    Bitfarms currently has 12 operating Bitcoin data centers and two under development situated in four countries: Canada, the United States, Paraguay, and Argentina. Powered predominantly by environmentally friendly hydro-electric and long-term power contracts, Bitfarms is committed to using sustainable and often underutilized energy infrastructure.

    To learn more about Bitfarms’ events, developments, and online communities:

    www.bitfarms.com
    https://www.facebook.com/bitfarms/
    https://twitter.com/Bitfarms_io
    https://www.instagram.com/bitfarms/
    https://www.linkedin.com/company/bitfarms/

    Forward-Looking Statements

    This news release contains certain “forward-looking information” and “forward-looking statements” (collectively, “forward-looking information”) that are based on expectations, estimates and projections as at the date of this news release and are covered by safe harbors under Canadian and United States securities laws. The statements and information in this release regarding holding the Special Meeting and the timing thereof, and the matters to be put before the Company’s shareholders at the Special Meeting are forward-looking information.

    Any statements that involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions, future events or performance (often but not always using phrases such as “expects”, or “does not expect”, “is expected”, “anticipates” or “does not anticipate”, “plans”, “budget”, “scheduled”, “forecasts”, “estimates”, “prospects”, “believes” or “intends” or variations of such words and phrases or stating that certain actions, events or results “may” or “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken to occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and may be forward-looking information. This forward-looking information is based on assumptions and estimates of management of Bitfarms at the time they were made, and involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of Bitfarms to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, risks relating to: the construction and operation of new facilities may not occur as currently planned, or at all; expansion of existing facilities may not materialize as currently anticipated, or at all; new miners may not perform up to expectations; revenue may not increase as currently anticipated, or at all; the ongoing ability to successfully mine Bitcoin is not assured; failure of the equipment upgrades to be installed and operated as planned; the availability of additional power may not occur as currently planned, or at all; expansion may not materialize as currently anticipated, or at all; and the power purchase agreements and economics thereof may not be as advantageous as expected. For further information concerning these and other risks and uncertainties, refer to Bitfarms’ filings on www.sedarplus.ca (which are also available on the website of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov), including the MD&A for the year-ended December 31, 2023, filed on March 7, 2024 and the MD&A for the three and six months ended June 30, 2024 filed on August 8, 2024. Although Bitfarms has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended, including factors that are currently unknown to or deemed immaterial by Bitfarms. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results, and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on any forward-looking information. Bitfarms undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking information other than as required by law. Trading in the securities of the Company should be considered highly speculative. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, or any other securities exchange or regulatory authority accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

    Investor Relations Contact:

    Bitfarms
    Tracy Krumme
    SVP, Head of IR & Corp. Comms.
    +1 786-671-5638
    tkrumme@bitfarms.com

    Media Contact:

    Québec: Tact
    Louis-Martin Leclerc
    +1 418-693-2425
    lmleclerc@tactconseil.ca

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Defense News: Navy Week Charts Course to Kansas City

    Source: United States Navy

    Kansas City Navy Week brings Sailors from across the fleet to the area to emphasize the importance of the Navy to Kansas City, the states of Missouri and Kansas, and the nation.

    More than 50 Sailors will participate in education and community outreach events throughout the city.

    Participating Navy organizations include Navy Band Great Lakes, USS Constitution, Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command, Navy Talent Acquisition Group Mid-America, Maritime Expeditionary Security Squadron Two, Navy History and Heritage Command, The Strike Group, Fleet Outreach Ambassador Team (FLOAT), Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Office of Small Business Programs, Office of Civilian Human Resources, Naval Reserve Center Kansas City, and Independence-class littoral combat ship USS Kansas City (LCS 22).

    The Navy’s senior executive is Rear Adm. Larry Watkins, Vice Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe/Vice Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Africa. He commissioned through the University of Missouri-Columbia Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps program in December 1990, graduating with an economics degree. He is also a 2012 graduate of Webster University with a Master of Business Administration and completed Joint Professional Military Education curriculum at Army Command & General Staff College. During Kansas City Navy Week, he is participating in community engagements, and meeting with local organizations, higher education, local business, civic, and government leaders.

    Navy Weeks are a series of outreach events coordinated by the Navy Office of Community Outreach designed to give Americans an opportunity to learn about the Navy, its people, and its importance to national security and prosperity. Since 2005, the Navy Week program has served as the Navy’s flagship outreach effort into areas of the country without a significant Navy presence, providing the public a firsthand look at why the Navy matters to cities like Kansas City.

    “Sailors are the reason America’s Navy is the most powerful in the world,” said NAVCO’s director, Cmdr. Julie Holland. “We are thrilled to bring your Navy Warfighters to Kansas City.  At Navy Weeks, Americans will connect with Sailors who have strong character, competence, and dedication to the mission, and who continue a nearly 250-year tradition of decisive power from seabed to cyberspace.”

    Throughout the week, Sailors are participating in various community events across the area, including ceremonial celebrations at Harry S. Truman Museum, WWI Museum, and Negro League Baseball Museum; volunteering with the Kansas City Urban Youth Academy, Habitat for Humanity Kansas City, Bishop Sullivan’s Center, Happy Bottoms, and Thelma’s Kitchen; and engaging with students across multiple high schools. Residents will also enjoy free live music by Navy Band Great Lakes at venues throughout the week.

    Kansas City Navy Week is the last of 15 Navy Weeks in 2024, which brings a variety of assets, equipment, and personnel to a single city for a weeklong series of engagements designed to bring America’s Navy closer to the people it protects. Each year, the program reaches more than 130 million people — about half the U.S. population.

    Media organizations wishing to cover Kansas City Navy Week events should contact Ensign Lamar Badger at (901) 229-5709 or erick.l.badger.mil@us.navy.mil.

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI: Mattermost Wins “Overall Incident Response Solution of the Year” in 2024 Cybersecurity Breakthrough Awards

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    Palo Alto, Calif., Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Mattermost, Inc., a leader in delivering the secure, real-time collaboration and workflow tools that modern defense, security, and intelligence teams need to maintain command, control, and operational tempo, today announced that it has won the “Overall Incident Response Solution of the Year” award in the eighth annual Cybersecurity Breakthrough Awards.

    The Cybersecurity Breakthrough Awards are one of the cybersecurity industry’s most comprehensive programs dedicated to recognizing the world’s best information security companies, products, and people. Mattermost’s win signifies the efficacy of its cybersecurity incident response playbooks, as the solution was weighed against thousands of global entries for its innovation, functionality, ease of use, performance, value, and impact.

    Today, it takes an average of 277 days to identify and contain a single attack, according to research from IBM and Ponemon Institute, resulting in costly, unexpected downtime, reputational damage, and potential compliance implications. To address these hurdles, Mattermost offers customizable digital Playbooks that document workflows and individual roles and responsibilities, and support real-time, out-of-band collaboration.

    Activating the moment an incident is detected, Playbooks alert designated teams across IT, security, legal, communications, and other business units via a secure channel with persona-based access controls. The Playbooks checklist-based automation is valuable in a variety of proactive and reactive incident response use cases such as managing a cyber attack, deploying a patch, issuing reports to customers and regulatory entities, and more. Near-term enhancements to Playbooks will serve to further transform incident response with advanced workflow features to help companies better respond to threats and maintain compliance with industry regulations.

    “Effective incident response is crucial for mitigating the fallout of cyberattacks, especially with the rapid evolution of today’s threat vectors. Response teams must have access to real-time insights and cross-department collaboration to ensure secure, timely resolution,” said Dr. Bill Anderson, principal product manager at Mattermost. “This award is a testament to our team’s unwavering commitment to empowering our customers across the public and private sectors to achieve excellence in cybersecurity.”

    Beyond cybersecurity, Mattermost Playbooks can also support workflows for logistics, DevOps, mission operations, and more by ensuring employees across business functions have access to the right information at the right time. Additionally, the Mattermost operational and collaboration platform’s open source nature aligns with strict security and compliance requirements by delivering complete data sovereignty when hosted on-premises. The Air Mobility Command is one of many customers that relies on the secure, collaborative power of Mattermost Playbooks to coordinate operations in real-time.  

    For more information about how Mattermost can streamline incident response, please visit: https://mattermost.com/solutions/use-cases/out-of-band-incident-response/. 

    About Mattermost

    Mattermost is the leading collaboration and workflow platform for mission-critical work. We serve national security, government, and critical infrastructure enterprises, from the U.S. Department of Defense, to global tech giants, to utilities, banks, and other vital services. We accelerate out-of-band incident response, DevSecOps workflow, mission operations, and self-sovereign collaboration to bolster the focus, adaptability, and resilience of the world’s most important organizations. 

    Our enterprise software and single-tenant SaaS platforms are built to meet the custom needs of rigorous and complex environments while offering a secure and unrivaled collaboration experience across web, desktop, and mobile with channel-based messaging, file sharing, audio calling and screen share, with integrated tooling, workflow automation and AI assistance. 

    Mattermost is developed on an open core platform vetted by the world’s leading security organizations, and co-built with over 4,000 open source project contributors who’ve provided over 30,000 code improvements towards our shared vision of accelerating the world’s mission-critical work. 

    For more information visit mattermost.com. 

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: You Could Get Up to $1,300 the Same Day with an H&R Block Emerald Advance® Loan

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    KANSAS CITY, Mo., Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — H&R Block (NYSE: HRB) today announced the opening of the 2024 application period for the H&R Block Emerald Advance® Loan1. Applications will be accepted November 1 through December 31, 2024. The Emerald Advance® Loan originated by Pathward® N.A. provides qualifying individuals up to $1,300 the same day they apply. The Emerald Advance® Loan could provide a little extra breathing room to help with holiday shopping, bills, or unexpected expenses.

    “During the holiday season, tight budgets can create additional stress on individuals and families already facing tighter budgets. The Emerald Advance Loan is designed to be simple to apply for and flexible to pay back, for those who need a little extra financial breathing room this time of year,” said John Thompson, Vice President of Financial Services at H&R Block. “By streamlining the application process and eliminating annual fees, the aim is to make it as simple as possible for families to get the assistance they need.”

    The Emerald Advance Loan has no application fee, and checking eligibility won’t impact a customer’s credit. With no monthly payments required, approved customers now have more flexibility to pay what they can, when they can as long as they pay the loan in full by March 31, 2025. There are convenient repayment options, including using a debit card, check, or money order. And for those who file their taxes with H&R Block this upcoming tax season, the loan can conveniently be paid back with their tax refund.

    Anyone can apply for the H&R Block Emerald Advance® Loan during the application period which runs from November 1 through December 31, 2024. To check eligibility and apply, go to HRBlock.com to make an appointment at one of nearly 4,000 participating H&R Block offices. H&R Block associates will gladly assist with the application process. Approved applicants could leave with funds on an Emerald Card®2 or deposited to their Spruce account2.

    To learn more, and make an appointment to apply for Emerald Advance today, visit HRBlock.com

    1H&R Block Emerald Advance® Loan originated by Pathward®, N.A. Subject to eligibility and credit approval. Annual Percentage Rate (APR) is 35.9%. Loan amounts vary from $350-$1300. If approved, loan proceeds will be disbursed as directed to prepaid card or checking account at Pathward. Additional terms and conditions apply, see account agreements for details. Offered for a limited time at participating locations.

    2 Spruce fintech platform is built by H&R Block, which is not a bank. Spruce℠ Spending and Savings Accounts established at, and the Spruce debit card and the H&R Block Emerald Prepaid Mastercard® are issued by, Pathward®, N.A., Member FDIC, pursuant to license by Mastercard®. Mastercard and the circles design are registered trademarks of Mastercard International Incorporated. Additional fees, conditions, and terms apply to how you use your Emerald Card or Spruce account. Consult your Cardholder Agreement or Spruce Spending Account Agreement for details.

    About H&R Block 
    H&R Block, Inc. (NYSE: HRB) provides help and inspires confidence in its clients and communities everywhere through global tax preparation services, financial products, and small-business solutions. The company blends digital innovation with human expertise and care as it helps people get the best outcome at tax time and also be better with money using its mobile banking app, Spruce. Through Block Advisors and Wave, the company helps small-business owners thrive with year-round bookkeeping, payroll, advisory, and payment processing solutions. For more information, visit H&R Block News.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: NANO Nuclear Energy Scheduled to Present at the ThinkEquity Conference on October 30, 2024

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    New York, N.Y., Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: NNE) (“NANO Nuclear” or “the Company”), a leading advanced nuclear energy and technology company focused on developing portable, clean energy solutions, today announced that its senior leadership will lead a presentation at the upcoming ThinkEquity Conference, held on October 30th, 2024, at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City.

    “The ThinkEquity Conference is well-known and anticipated gathering of innovative companies,” said Jay Yu, Founder and Chairman of NANO Nuclear Energy. “We’re excited to lead an informative and engaging presentation and look forward to meaningful one-on-one discussions with fellow attendees.”

    Figure 1 – NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. Will Present at The ThinkEquity Conference, to be held on October 30th, 2024, at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in New York City.

    The 2024 edition of the ThinkEquity Conference will showcase innovative companies across sectors such as alternative energy, biotechnology, AI & big data, and more. With over 750 attendees, the event will feature more than 75 company presentations and 650 one-on-one meetings with investors.

    “It is a pleasure to be participating the ThinkEquity Conference this year,” said James Walker, Chief Executive Officer and Head of Reactor Development of NANO Nuclear Energy. “In addition to discussing the progress of our innovative technologies during the presentation, the event offers a valuable opportunity to engage personally with investors and innovators from other sectors.”

    About NANO Nuclear Energy, Inc.

    NANO Nuclear Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: NNE) is an advanced technology-driven nuclear energy company seeking to become a commercially focused, diversified, and vertically integrated company across four business lines: (i) cutting edge portable microreactor technology, (ii) nuclear fuel fabrication, (iii) nuclear fuel transportation and (iv) nuclear industry consulting services. NANO Nuclear believes it is the first portable nuclear microreactor company to be listed publicly in the U.S.

    Led by a world-class nuclear engineering team, NANO Nuclear’s products in technical development are “ZEUS”, a solid core battery reactor, and “ODIN”, a low-pressure coolant reactor, each representing advanced developments in clean energy solutions that are portable, on-demand capable, advanced nuclear microreactors.

    Advanced Fuel Transportation Inc. (AFT), a NANO Nuclear subsidiary, is led by former executives from the largest transportation company in the world aiming to build a North American transportation company that will provide commercial quantities of HALEU fuel to small modular reactors, microreactor companies, national laboratories, military, and DOE programs. Through NANO Nuclear, AFT is the exclusive licensee of a patented high-capacity HALEU fuel transportation basket developed by three major U.S. national nuclear laboratories and funded by the Department of Energy. Assuming development and commercialization, AFT is expected to form part of the only vertically integrated nuclear fuel business of its kind in North America.

    HALEU Energy Fuel Inc. (HEF), a NANO Nuclear subsidiary, is focusing on the future development of a domestic source for a High-Assay, Low-Enriched Uranium (HALEU) fuel fabrication pipeline for NANO Nuclear’s own microreactors as well as the broader advanced nuclear reactor industry.

    NANO Nuclear Space Inc. (NNS), a NANO Nuclear subsidiary, is exploring the potential commercial applications of NANO Nuclear’s developing micronuclear reactor technology in space. NNS is focusing on applications such as power systems for extraterrestrial projects and human sustaining environments, and potentially propulsion technology for long haul space missions. NNS’ initial focus will be on cis-lunar applications, referring to uses in the space region extending from Earth to the area surrounding the Moon’s surface.

    For more corporate information please visit: https://NanoNuclearEnergy.com/

    For further information, please contact:
    Email: IR@NANONuclearEnergy.com
    Business Tel: (212) 634-9206

    PLEASE FOLLOW OUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES HERE:
    NANO Nuclear Energy LINKEDIN
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    Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements

    This news release, the conference presentation described herein, and statements of NANO Nuclear’s management in connection with this news release and such presentation contain or may contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In this context, forward-looking statements mean statements related to future events, which may impact our expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as “expects”, “anticipates”, “intends”, “plans”, “believes”, “potential”, “will”, “should”, “could”, “would” or “may” and other words of similar meaning. These forward-looking statements are based on information available to us as of the date of this news release and represent management’s current views and assumptions. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, events or results and involve significant known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may be beyond our control. For NANO Nuclear, particular risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual future results to differ materially from those expressed in our forward-looking statements include but are not limited to the following: (i) risks related to our U.S. Department of Energy (“DOE”) or related state nuclear fuel licensing submissions, (ii) risks related the development of new or advanced technology, including difficulties with design and testing, cost overruns, development of competitive technology, (iii) our ability to obtain contracts and funding to be able to continue operations, (iv) risks related to uncertainty regarding our ability to technologically develop and commercially deploy a competitive advanced nuclear reactor or other technology in the timelines we anticipate, if ever, (v) risks related to the impact of government regulation and policies including by the DOE and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, including those associated with the recently enacted ADVANCE Act, and (vi) similar risks and uncertainties associated with the business of a start-up business operating a highly regulated industry. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which apply only as of the date of this news release. These factors may not constitute all factors that could cause actual results to differ from those discussed in any forward-looking statement, and the NANO Nuclear therefore encourages investors to review other factors that may affect future results in its filings with the SEC, which are available for review at www.sec.gov and at https://ir.nanonuclearenergy.com/financial-information/sec-filings. Accordingly, forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as a predictor of actual results. We do not undertake to update our forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this news release, except as required by law.

    Attachment

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Global Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Market Valuation Expected to Reach $2.11 Billion by 2032

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    PALM BEACH, Fla., Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — FN Media Group News Commentary – The global Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Market has been growing in the past years and is expected to continue at a substantial pace for years to come. Growing awareness and concern about the impacts of climate change are driving governments, businesses, and individuals to seek effective solutions for mitigating carbon dioxide emissions. The CDR market benefits from this heightened awareness and the urgent need for sustainable practices. A report from Custom Marketing Insights said that the global Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) Market size is expected to record a CAGR of 14.8% from 2023 to 2032. In 2023, the market size is projected to reach a valuation of USD 610.9 Million. By 2032, the valuation is anticipated to reach USD 2,115.5 Million.   The report said: “Stringent Regulatory Policies and Targets: Governments around the world are implementing and enhancing regulatory frameworks aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The imposition of carbon reduction targets and the integration of carbon pricing mechanisms create a favorable environment for the growth of the CDR market, as industries seek ways to comply with these regulations.   Advancements in CDR Technologies: Ongoing research and development efforts are leading to technological advancements in carbon removal methods. Improved efficiency, scalability, and cost-effectiveness of CDR technologies contribute to their wider adoption and growth in the market.   Increasing Corporate Sustainability Initiatives: Many companies are adopting sustainability goals and committing to achieving net-zero emissions. As part of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives, businesses are investing in CDR technologies to offset their carbon footprint, contributing to the overall growth of the market.”   Active carbon companies in the markets this week include: BluSky Carbon Inc. (CSE: BSKY) (OTCQB: BSKCF), SLB (NYSE: SLB), DevvStream Holdings Inc. (OTCQB: DSTRF) (NEO: DESG), Base Carbon Inc. (OTCQX: BCBNF) (NEO: BCBN), LanzaTech Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNZA).

    Custom Marketing Insights continued: “Rising Investments and Funding: The CDR market is witnessing increased investments from both public and private sectors. Governments, venture capital firms, and major corporations are allocating funds to support research, development, and implementation of carbon removal technologies, fostering market growth.   Emergence of Carbon Offset Markets: The development of carbon offset markets, where entities can buy and sell carbon credits, provides financial incentives for the deployment of CDR technologies. This market dynamic encourages the adoption of carbon removal solutions as a means for businesses to offset their emissions and comply with regulatory requirements, thereby driving market growth.”

    BluSky Carbon Inc. (CSE: BSKY) (OTCQB: BSKCF) Commences Biochar Production in Arkansas – BluSky Carbon Inc. (FWB: QE4 /WKN A401NM) (“BluSky” or the “Company”), an innovative entry into the carbon removal clean technology sector is very pleased to announce that it has commenced production of biochar at a dedicated facility in Arkansas. The event marks the official startup of initial biochar production aimed at servicing the recently announced $105 million, ten-year supply agreement (see Company news release dated Sept 24, 2024) (“Supply Agreement”).

    A video showing the equipment start-up and providing some insights into the facility, the region, and BluSky’s strategic plan is available here.

    The startup of the Vulcan Heavy system at this location represents the first of three units required to service the totality of the Supply Agreement. Once the other two units are procured and fully operational (see news release dated September 24, 2024), these machines are expected to produce a combined output of approximately 40,000 tons of biochar annually. It is also expected that production byproducts such as bio-oil and syngas may help reduce the Company’s overall production costs by providing some of the energy required to power the Vulcan systems, potentially along with surplus power capacity to contribute towards operating BluSky’s related carbon removal technologies (CDR) including its Medusa Carbon mineralization process and Kronos Direct Air Carbon Capture technology.

    The inaugural production plant has been dedicated as “AR1“ and is located at 110 Industrial Park Drive in Warren, Arkansas. The facility consists of a multi-room 50,000 sq/ft enclosure located on an 8.54-acre property. Warren services an established sustainable timber industry with a strong presence in the town and surrounding area. Nearby softwood wood chip production (mostly yellow pine) serves as a nearly limitless source of clean biomass feedstock for the BluSky Vulcan Heavy pyrolysis systems.

    BluSky CEO Will Hessert comments, “The facility is ideally suited for scalability. We have ample room for the three Vulcan Heavy units as required to service our initial regional contract, with additional room to double that production without the need to create more space. The property itself is large and well suited to handle industrial scale logistics and storage needs.”   CONTINUED… Read this full press release and more news for BluSky Carbon at:   https://bluskycarbon.com/news/

    Other recent carbon developments in the markets of note include:

    SLB (NYSE: SLB), formerly known as Schlumberger, recently announced it was aiming to accelerate the deployment of carbon capture technology through an investment in Norway’s Aker Carbon Capture. SLB said that it will pay about $380 million, or 4.12 billion Norwegian kroner, for an 80% stake in the pure-play carbon capture company. The deal is expected to close by the end of the second quarter.

    Schlumberger rebranded as SLB in 2022 as part of the company’s growing focus on lower-carbon technologies. SLB is targeting $3 billion in revenue from its new energy business by the end of the decade. CEO Olivier Le Peuch told analysts during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call that carbon capture and storage will be a leading contributor to that $3 billion target. SLB is participating in more than $400 million worth of tenders related to carbon capture and storage.

    DevvStream Holdings Inc. (NEO: DESG) (OTCQB: DSTRF), a leading carbon credit project co-development and generation firm specializing in technology-based solutions, recently announced an agreement (the “Agreement”) to purchase 1.2 million carbon credits from the Ipixuna REDD+ Project (the “Project”), subject to final approval by the board of Focus Impact Acquisition Corp. (“Focus Impact”). In exchange for the credits, the vendor will receive newly authorized shares of common stock of the public company (“NewCo”) resulting from DevvStream’s previously announced business combination with Focus Impact (the “Business Combination”). Upon closing of the Business Combination-projected to occur on or before October 31, 2024-NewCo is expected to be named DevvStream Corp. and begin trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market LLC (“Nasdaq”) under the ticker symbol “DEVS.” The Company expects the carbon credit purchase Agreement to close in conjunction with and conditional upon the Business Combination and Nasdaq listing.

    Base Carbon Inc. (NEO: BCBN) (OTCQX: BCBNF) with operations through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Base Carbon Capital Partners Corp. (together, with affiliates, “Base Carbon”, or the “Company”), recently announced that it has received a second transfer of 1,014,635 carbon credits from its Rwanda project, each designated with Verra’s Article 6 Authorized label.

    Pursuant to the terms of the project agreement with the DelAgua Group, the project developer, and the letter of authorization issued by the Government of Rwanda (“LOA”) with respect to the project, the Company has received a transfer of 1,014,635 Article 6 Authorized labeled carbon credits. This volume is net of 23,060 carbon credits which have been retired to contribute towards global emission reductions and 115,300 carbon credits to be made available to the Government of Rwanda pursuant to the terms of the LOA. The Company now holds a total inventory of 1,712,193 carbon credits generated from the Rwanda project, all designated with Verra’s Article 6 Authorized label.

    LanzaTech Global, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNZA), the carbon recycling company transforming waste carbon into sustainable fuels, chemicals, materials, and protein, has been awarded $3 million by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), as part of a broader $29 million investment program to advance its carbon management priorities. LanzaTech’s Project ADAPT (“Accelerating Decarbonization via Advanced Production Technologies”) was selected to address FECM’s priority of converting carbon dioxide (CO2) into environmentally responsible and economically valuable products…

    …”We are thrilled to receive this support from the U.S. Department of Energy to progress our work around scaling the conversion of waste CO2 to make some of the world’s most needed chemicals,” said Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech. “CO2 is an essential feedstock of today and the future, and Project ADAPT leverages our expertise and existing operations to accelerate the commercialization of transformational carbon capture and utilization technologies that deliver cleaner and more sustainable energy and products.”

    About FN Media Group:

    At FN Media Group, via our top-rated online news portal at www.financialnewsmedia.com, we are one of the very few select firms providing top tier one syndicated news distribution, targeted ticker tag press releases and stock market news coverage for today’s emerging companies. #tickertagpressreleases #pressreleases

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    DISCLAIMER:  FN Media Group LLC (FNM), which owns and operates FinancialNewsMedia.com and MarketNewsUpdates.com, is a third party publisher and news dissemination service provider, which disseminates electronic information through multiple online media channels.  FNM is NOT affiliated in any manner with any company mentioned herein.  FNM and its affiliated companies are a news dissemination solutions provider and are NOT a registered broker/dealer/analyst/adviser, holds no investment licenses and may NOT sell, offer to sell or offer to buy any security.  FNM’s market updates, news alerts and corporate profiles are NOT a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold securities.  The material in this release is intended to be strictly informational and is NEVER to be construed or interpreted as research material.  All readers are strongly urged to perform research and due diligence on their own and consult a licensed financial professional before considering any level of investing in stocks.  All material included herein is republished content and details which were previously disseminated by the companies mentioned in this release.  FNM is not liable for any investment decisions by its readers or subscribers.  Investors are cautioned that they may lose all or a portion of their investment when investing in stocks.  For current services performed FNM was compensated twenty three hundred dollars for news coverage of the current press releases issued by BluSky Carbon Inc. by the company.  FNM HOLDS NO SHARES OF ANY COMPANY NAMED IN THIS RELEASE.

    This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. “Forward-looking statements” describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as “may”, “future”, “plan” or “planned”, “will” or “should”, “expected,” “anticipates”, “draft”, “eventually” or “projected”. You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, and other risks identified in a company’s annual report on Form 10-K or 10-KSB and other filings made by such company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should consider these factors in evaluating the forward-looking statements included herein, and not place undue reliance on such statements. The forward-looking statements in this release are made as of the date hereof and FNM undertakes no obligation to update such statements.

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    SOURCE: FN Media Group, LLC.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Tabnine Unveils Industry-First, Hyper-Personalized AI Code Review Agent

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    TEL AVIV, Israel, Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Tabnine, the originators of the AI code assistant category, today unveiled the Tabnine Code Review Agent; introducing a first-of-its-kind AI software validation agent that enables organizations to produce higher quality, more secure code by leveraging and enforcing any given team’s unique best practices and standards for software development.

    This is the first in a wave of highly advanced AI agents and a suite of product capabilities within Tabnine that provides direct coaching and guidance to how the AI behaves. Tabnine’s Code Review Agent makes it effortless for organizations to codify their institutional knowledge, corporate policies, and software development standards, including best practices and patterns found in their “golden code repos.” The Tabnine Code Review Agent will then enforce adherence to those rules across the software development process. This explicit guidance builds on Tabnine’s personalized approach to AI code generation through awareness and understanding of both locally available code and data in the integrated development environment (IDE) and a company’s software repository. The combination allows Tabnine to fully adapt to and reflect the unique methods and preferences of each engineering team.

    “AI in software development is about much more than just generating more code; it’s greatest power might be in helping improve the quality, security, and compliance of code in real time as we work. By reviewing code at the pull request and ensuring that the code presented matches each team’s unique expectations, we are saving engineering teams significant time and effort while applying a level of rigor to the automation of code review that was never possible with static code analysis,” said Peter Guagenti, President at Tabnine. “Using a set of rules personalized to each given organization, the Tabnine Code Review Agent sets a new bar for the category. Tabnine’s unique approach to personalization allows our agents to behave like a fully onboarded member of your engineering team that is steeped in your team’s ways of working.”

    Tabnine Code Review Agent enables companies to provide the specific parameters they would like to see their code comply with via plain language, with no complex setup required. Tabnine converts this provided knowledge into a set of comprehensive rules. Additionally, Tabnine offers a vast array of predefined rules any team can activate, including commonly used industry standards, as well as language or product-specific best practices.

    When developers create a pull request, the Code Review Agent checks the code in the pull request against the rules established by their team. If any aspect of the code doesn’t conform with those rules, then the Agent flags it to the code reviewer, providing guidance on the issue and suggested edits to fix it. All of the rules are in plain English, which makes it easy to review and maintain over time. Tabnine administrators have complete control and can enable or disable specific rules, and set the severity of rules.

    Tabnine’s Code Review Agent will also soon be available within the full array of IDEs the company supports. The Agent passively reviews code as a developer works; flagging issues and offering suggestions as appropriate inside the code editor.

    The Code Review Agent is in Private Preview and open to any Tabnine enterprise customer. You can request early access by contacting Tabnine. Learn more about the Tabnine Code Review Agent and see it in action here.

    About Tabnine
    Tabnine helps development teams of every size use AI to accelerate and improve the software development life cycle. As the original AI coding assistant, Tabnine has been used by millions of developers around the world to boost code quality and developer happiness using generative AI. Unlike other coding assistants, Tabnine is the AI that you control; it is extensively personalized to your engineering team, private and secure (easily running in your controlled environments), never stores or trains on your company’s code or user data, and offers models trained exclusively on open-source code with permissive licenses to eliminate IP risks. Learn more at tabnine.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

    Contact
    press@tabnine.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Europe: ASIA/SOUTH KOREA – A mass in memory of the victims of the Halloween massacre, two years later

    Source: Agenzia Fides – MIL OSI

    Tuesday, 29 October 2024 youth  

    Photo:Park Sun Hyeok

    Seoul (Agenzia Fides) – Yesterday evening, in the church of the “St. Francis Educational Center” in the Jung Dong district, in the capital of South Korea, a mass was held in memory of the victims of the Halloween disaster in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district where on October 29, 2022, a total of 159 people lost their lives in a stampede, swept away by the crowd of young people who had come for the Halloween party.The Holy Mass was celebrated by Father Marco Inkook Kim together with about 20 diocesan and religious priests, and was attended by at least 200 people, among whom there were also numerous nuns. During the Mass, the names of all the victims were read in the presence of the parents present, who wore purple clothes and sat in the first pews. The father of Sang-eun, one of the victims, took the floor and gave a long speech. “I would like to take this opportunity to thank the nuns and priests on behalf of the grieving families for holding our hands, shedding tears and offering us comfort and support,” said Lee Sung-hwan, among other things.The Mass concluded with a performance by the famous artist Shin Sang Og, followed by music to the sounds of the song “Fly me to the moon”.The Catholic Church in Korea will host World Youth Day in 2027. There are many expectations from those involved in organizing this event, which will be an opportunity for the Korean ecclesial community to look with particular attention to the young generations and their situation. (PR) (Agenzia Fides, 29/10/2024)
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  • MIL-OSI: First Financial Northwest, Inc. Reports Third Quarter 2024 Results

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    RENTON, Wash., Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — First Financial Northwest, Inc. (the “Company”) (NASDAQ GS: FFNW), the holding company for First Financial Northwest Bank (the “Bank”), today reported a net loss of $608,000, or $(0.07) per diluted share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to net income of $1.6 million, or $0.17 per diluted share, for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and net income of $1.5 million, or $0.16 per diluted share, for the quarter ended September 30, 2023. For the nine months ended September 30, 2024, the Company reported a net loss of $128,000, or $(0.01) per diluted share, compared to net income of $5.1 million, or $0.56 per diluted share, for the comparable period in 2023.

    The net loss for the quarter was primarily the result of a $1.6 million provision for credit losses. Our allowance for credit losses (“ACL”) analysis determined that a provision for credit losses of $1.6 million was appropriate as of September 30, 2024. This provision mainly relates to two participation loans totaling $6.0 million, for which we are not the lead lender. These loans, secured by short-term rehabilitation and assisted living facilities, have been individually evaluated and classified as “substandard” since March 2022 due to a decline in demand for the services provided at such facilities post-COVID. While payments on the loans were current as of September 30, 2024, updated appraisals received during the quarter resulted in an increase in our ACL. The loan guarantors are under contract to sell another property, with the sale expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2024. Proceeds from this sale are expected to be applied to the two loans, which would improve our position. Additionally, the guarantors reported interest from a national real estate developer in purchasing one of the facilities, though no purchase agreement was entered into as of September 30, 2024. The ACL was also impacted by higher forecasted unemployment rates and increased construction and land development loan balances. Additionally, reserves for unfunded commitments increased by $75,000 due to increased construction lending activity during the quarter.

    “While we recorded a provision for credit losses during the quarter ended September 30, 2024, our credit quality remained strong, with only $853,000 in nonaccrual loans relative to our $1.14 billion total loan portfolio. Our strong credit quality is directly related to our top-notch lending department employees who originate, document and underwrite these loans,” stated Joseph W. Kiley III, President and CEO.

    “We also continue to work closely with Global Federal Credit Union (“Global”) to prepare for the closing of the pending transaction and to ensure a smooth transition for our customers and employees. I truly appreciate the efforts and patience of our employees, customers, and shareholders as we await the final required approval from the National Credit Union Administration before we can close the transaction,” concluded Kiley.

    Highlights for the quarter ended September 30, 2024:

    • Net loans receivable totaled $1.13 billion at September 30, 2024, down $8.9 million from the prior quarter end.
    • Book value per share was $17.39 at September 30, 2024, compared to $17.51 at June 30, 2024, and $17.35 at September 30, 2023.
    • The Bank’s Tier 1 leverage and total capital ratios were 10.9% and 16.7% at September 30, 2024, compared to 10.9% and 16.6% at June 30, 2024, and 10.3% and 16.0% at September 30, 2023, respectively.
    • Credit quality remained strong with nonaccrual loans totaling only $853,000, or 0.07% of total loans.
    • A $1.6 million provision for credit losses was recorded in the current quarter, compared to a $200,000 recapture of provision for credit losses in the prior quarter and a $300,000 recapture of provision for credit losses in the comparable quarter in 2023.

    Deposits totaled $1.17 billion at September 30, 2024, compared to $1.09 billion at June 30, 2024, and $1.21 billion at September 30, 2023. The $79.2 million increase in deposits at September 30, 2024, compared to June 30, 2024, was due primarily to a $81.9 million increase in retail certificates of deposit and a $624,000 increase in noninterest-bearing demand deposits, partially offset by a $1.5 million, $1.4 million, $392,000, and $104,000 decline in interest-bearing demand deposits, money market deposits, savings and brokered deposits, respectively. The increased deposits were used to pay down our FHLB advances to $100.0 million at September 30, 2024, from $176.0 million at June 30, 2024.

    Advances from the FHLB totaled $100.0 million at September 30, 2024, down from $176.0 million at June 30, 2024, and $125.0 million at September 30, 2023, as the increase in deposits during the current quarter allowed us to reduce our reliance on FHLB advances. At September 30, 2024, the $100.0 million in FHLB advances were tied to cash flow hedge agreements where the Bank pays a fixed rate and receives a variable rate in return to assist in the Bank’s interest rate risk management efforts. These cash flow hedge agreements had a weighted average remaining term of 30.8 months and a weighted average fixed interest rate of 1.93% as of September 30, 2024. The average cost of borrowings was 3.19% for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to 2.64% for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and 2.42% for the quarter ended September 30, 2023.

    The following table presents a breakdown of our total deposits (unaudited):

      Sep 30,
    2024    		   Jun 30,
    2024    		   Sep 30,
    2023    		   Three
    Month
    Change    		   One
    Year
    Change
    Deposits: (Dollars in thousands)
    Noninterest-bearing demand $ 100,466   $ 99,842   $ 104,164   $ 624     $ (3,698 )
    Interest-bearing demand   55,506     57,033     60,816     (1,527 )     (5,310 )
    Savings   17,031     17,423     18,844     (392 )     (1,813 )
    Money market   495,978     497,345     501,168     (1,367 )     (5,190 )
    Certificates of deposit, retail   447,474     365,527     349,446     81,947       98,028  
    Brokered deposits   50,900     51,004     175,972     (104 )     (125,072 )
    Total deposits $ 1,167,355   $ 1,088,174   $ 1,210,410   $ 79,181     $ (43,055 )
     

    The following tables present an analysis of total deposits by branch office (unaudited):

    September 30, 2024
      Noninterest-bearing demand Interest-bearing demand Savings Money
    market    		 Certificates of deposit, retail Brokered
    deposits    		 Total
      (Dollars in thousands)
    King County              
    Renton $ 29,388 $ 14,153 $ 10,654 $ 305,836 $ 315,721 $ – $ 675,752
    Landing   3,442   1,660   237   8,348   12,733   –   26,420
    Woodinville   1,968   2,234   959   8,852   11,522   –   25,535
    Bothell   2,965   1,151   401   1,536   5,918   –   11,971
    Crossroads   14,770   2,039   107   31,665   18,136   –   66,717
    Kent   5,417   10,502   44   16,053   8,562   –   40,578
    Kirkland   10,967   1,890   206   11,243   2,240   –   26,546
    Issaquah   1,186   294   18   2,547   6,580   –   10,625
    Total King County   70,103   33,923   12,626   386,080   381,412   –   884,144
    Snohomish County              
    Mill Creek   3,990   2,171   384   14,628   10,312   –   31,485
    Edmonds   9,254   6,831   330   18,549   13,281   –   48,245
    Clearview   5,587   5,242   1,462   21,206   12,251   –   45,748
    Lake Stevens   3,970   4,282   1,244   23,257   15,571   –   48,324
    Smokey Point   2,994   1,664   969   29,353   11,387   –   46,367
    Total Snohomish County   25,795   20,190   4,389   106,993   62,802   –   220,169
    Pierce County              
    University Place   2,940   53   4   1,848   1,458   –   6,303
    Gig Harbor   1,628   1,340   12   1,057   1,802   –   5,839
    Total Pierce County   4,568   1,393   16   2,905   3,260   –   12,142
                   
    Brokered deposits   –   –   –   –   –   50,900   50,900
                   
    Total deposits $ 100,466 $ 55,506 $ 17,031 $ 495,978 $ 447,474 $ 50,900 $ 1,167,355
    June 30, 2024
      Noninterest-bearing demand Interest-bearing demand Savings Money
    market    		 Certificates of deposit, retail Brokered
    deposits    		 Total
      (Dollars in thousands)
    King County              
    Renton $ 30,336 $ 14,380 $ 11,186 $ 306,176 $ 246,076 $ – $ 608,154
    Landing   2,079   566   113   7,895   9,881   –   20,534
    Woodinville   1,953   2,949   987   10,931   10,845   –   27,665
    Bothell   3,336   847   398   1,595   6,055   –   12,231
    Crossroads   13,585   2,858   28   25,599   17,748   –   59,818
    Kent   7,729   8,142   42   14,525   7,448   –   37,886
    Kirkland   8,326   1,789   210   15,007   1,752   –   27,084
    Issaquah   1,287   232   22   3,971   6,202   –   11,714
    Total King County   68,631   31,763   12,986   385,699   306,007   –   805,086
    Snohomish County              
    Mill Creek   5,823   2,306   420   15,209   9,578   –   33,336
    Edmonds   10,418   9,470   402   20,255   12,753   –   53,298
    Clearview   4,810   4,888   1,444   18,695   9,504   –   39,341
    Lake Stevens   4,111   4,445   1,171   22,618   14,090   –   46,435
    Smokey Point   2,700   3,152   982   31,808   10,435   –   49,077
    Total Snohomish County   27,862   24,261   4,419   108,585   56,360   –   221,487
    Pierce County              
    University Place   2,385   41   2   1,819   1,503   –   5,750
    Gig Harbor   964   968   16   1,242   1,657   –   4,847
    Total Pierce County   3,349   1,009   18   3,061   3,160   –   10,597
                   
    Brokered deposits   –   –   –   –   –   51,004   51,004
                   
    Total deposits $ 99,842 $ 57,033 $ 17,423 $ 497,345 $ 365,527 $ 51,004 $ 1,088,174
     

    Net loans receivable totaled $1.13 billion at September 30, 2024, compared to $1.14 billion at June 30, 2024, and $1.17 billion at September 30, 2023. During the quarter ended September 30, 2024, loan repayments outpaced new loan fundings across all loan categories except construction and land development. The average balance of net loans receivable totaled $1.13 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to $1.14 billion for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and $1.17 billion for the quarter ended September 30, 2023.

    The ACL represented 1.42% of total loans receivable at September 30, 2024, compared to 1.29% at both June 30, 2024, and September 30, 2023.

    Nonaccrual loans totaled $853,000 at September 30, 2024, compared to $4.7 million at June 30, 2024, and $201,000 at September 30, 2023. The decrease compared to the prior quarter was due primarily to the payoff of a $4.1 million commercial real estate loan that had been reported as nonaccrual as of June 30, 2024. The Bank did not incur any loss related to this credit. Additionally, there was no other real estate owned at September 30, 2024, June 30, 2024, or September 30, 2023.

    Net interest income totaled $8.5 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to $9.0 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and $9.7 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2023.

    Total interest income was $19.4 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to $19.3 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and $19.7 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2023. The increase in total interest income during the current quarter was primarily due to interest income on interest-earning deposits held with banks which increased to $863,000 in the quarter ended September 30, 2024, up 79.0% from $482,000 in the quarter ended June 30, 2024, partially offset by decreases in interest income on loans and investments of $147,000 or 0.9% and $142,000 or 7.5%, respectively. The decrease in total interest income during the current quarter compared to the comparable quarter in 2023, was primarily due to decreases in interest income on loans of $260,000 or 1.5% and on investments of $374,000 or 17.7%, partially offset by increases in interest income on interest-earning deposits held with banks and dividends on FHLB stock of $338,000 or 64.4% and $37,000 or 32.7%, respectively.

    Yield on loans decreased to 5.86% during the recent quarter from 5.93% for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and increased from 5.73% for the quarter ended September 30, 2023. During the June 30, 2024 quarter, the Bank modified over $130 million in loans under its agreement with Global, resulting in a $214,000 increase in net deferred loan fees and costs, which increased the loan yield. In the most recent quarter, these fees and costs decreased by $266,000. The yield on investment securities for the current quarter was 4.30%, down from 4.38% last quarter and up from 3.98% a year ago.

    Total interest expense was $11.0 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to $10.3 million for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and $10.0 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2023. The increase from the quarters ended June 30, 2024 and September 30, 2023, was due to increases in funding costs. Interest expense on deposits increased $250,000 or 2.6% to $9.7 million, while interest expense on other borrowings increased $364,000 or 42.9% to $1.2 million during the current quarter, compared to the prior quarter. The increase in interest expense on deposits was primarily due to a $32.5 million increase in the average balances of certificates of deposit, partially offset by declines of $28.9 million and $10.7 million in the average balances of brokered deposits and money market deposits, respectively. In addition, the average cost of interest-bearing deposits was 3.80% for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, up from 3.71% for the quarter ended June 30, 2024. The increase in interest expense on other borrowings was due to a $22.4 million increase in the average balance of borrowings, coupled with a 55-basis point increase in the average cost of other borrowings to 3.19% during the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to the prior quarter. The increase in interest expense during the current quarter compared to the same quarter in 2023, was also due to increases in both the average balance and cost of outstanding borrowings, which increased by $26.1 million and 77 basis points, respectively.

    Net interest margin was 2.46% for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to 2.66% for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and 2.69% for the quarter ended September 30, 2023. The decrease in the net interest margin for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, was due primarily to continued pressure on funding costs. The average yield on interest-earning assets decreased seven basis points to 5.66% during the quarter ended September 30, 2024, from 5.73% during the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and increased 20 basis points from 5.46% during the quarter ended September 30, 2023. The average cost of interest-bearing liabilities increased 13 basis points to 3.72% during the quarter, from 3.59% during the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and increased 48 basis points from 3.24% during the quarter ended September 30, 2023. The net interest margin for the month of September 2024 was 2.49%.

    Noninterest income for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, totaled $677,000, up slightly from $673,000 for the quarter ended June 30, 2024, and unchanged from $677,000 for the quarter ended September 30, 2023. The increase compared to the quarter ended June 30, 2024, was primarily due to fluctuations related to our fintech focused venture capital investment more than offsetting the decreases in BOLI income, wealth management revenue and deposit and loan related fees in the quarter.

    Noninterest expense totaled $8.5 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2024, compared to $7.9 million for the prior quarter, and $8.8 million for the same period in 2023. The increase from the June 30, 2024 quarter was primarily due to a $789,000 increase in salaries and employee benefits. This was because the June 2024 quarter included $939,000 in deferred loan costs related to loan modifications, which reduced salary and employee benefit expenses, compared to $117,000 in deferred loan costs in the quarter ended September 30, 2024. Partially offsetting this was a $411,000 refund from the defined benefit plan buyout following a final census review of remaining plan participants. Professional fees also declined by $164,000 in the current quarter, largely due to a $101,000 decline in transaction-related expenses and a $54,000 decline in legal fees. Compared to the September 30, 2023 quarter, the decline in noninterest expense was primarily due to a $412,000 decrease in salaries and employee benefits, a $51,000 decrease in marketing expenses, a $35,000 decline in regulatory assessments, and $10,000 in lower occupancy and equipment expense. These reductions were partially offset by higher data processing, other general and administrative expenses and professional fees.

    First Financial Northwest, Inc. is the parent company of First Financial Northwest Bank; an FDIC insured Washington State-chartered commercial bank headquartered in Renton, Washington, serving the Puget Sound Region through 15 full-service banking offices. For additional information about us, please visit our website at ffnwb.com and click on the “Investor Relations” link at the bottom of the page.

    Forward-looking statements:
    When used in this press release and in other documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), in press releases or other public stockholder communications, or in oral statements made with the approval of an authorized executive officer, the words or phrases “believe,” “will,” “will likely result,” “are expected to,” “will continue,” “is anticipated,” “estimate,” “project,” “plans,” or similar expressions are intended to identify “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not historical facts but instead represent management’s current expectations and forecasts regarding future events many of which are inherently uncertain and outside of our control. Forward-looking statements include statements with respect to our beliefs, plans, objectives, goals, expectations, assumptions and statements about, among other things, our pending transaction with Global Federal Credit Union (“Global”) whereby Global, pursuant to the definitive purchase and assumption agreement (the “P&A Agreement”), will acquire substantially all of the assets and assume substantially all of the liabilities of the Bank, expectations of the business environment in which we operate, projections of future performance or financial items, perceived opportunities in the market, potential future credit experience, and statements regarding our mission and vision. These forward-looking statements are based on current management expectations and may, therefore, involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ, possibly materially from those currently expected or projected in these forward-looking statements made by, or on behalf of, us and could negatively affect our operating and stock performance. Factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements, include, but are not limited to, the following: the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstances that could give rise to the right of one or all of the parties to terminate the P&A Agreement; delays in completing the P&A Agreement; the failure to obtain necessary regulatory approvals or to satisfy any of the other conditions to the Global transaction, including the P&A Agreement, on a timely basis or at all; delays or other circumstances arising from the dissolution of the Bank and the Company following completion of the P&A Agreement; diversion of management’s attention from ongoing business operations and opportunities during the pending Global transaction; potential adverse reactions or changes to business or employee relationships, including those resulting from the announcement of the Global transaction; adverse impacts to economic conditions in our local market areas, other markets where the Company has lending relationships, or other aspects of the Company’s business operations or financial markets, including, without limitation, as a result of employment levels, labor shortages and the effects of inflation, a recession or slowed economic growth; changes in the interest rate environment, including increases or decreases in the Federal Reserve benchmark rate and duration at which such interest rate levels are maintained, which could adversely affect our revenues and expenses, the value of assets and obligations, and the availability and cost of capital and liquidity; the impact of inflation and the current and future monetary policies of the Federal Reserve in response thereto; the effects of any federal government shutdown; increased competitive pressures; legislative and regulatory changes; the impact of bank failures or adverse developments at other banks and related negative press about the banking industry in general on investor and depositor sentiment; disruptions, security breaches, or other adverse events, failures or interruptions in, or attacks on, our information technology systems or on the third-party vendors who perform several of our critical processing functions; effects of critical accounting policies and judgments, including the use of estimates in determining the fair value of certain of our assets, which estimates may prove to be incorrect and result in significant declines in valuation; the effects of climate change, severe weather events, natural disasters, pandemics, epidemics and other public health crises, acts of war or terrorism, civil unrest and other external events on our business; and other factors described in the Company’s latest Annual Report on Form 10-K and Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other reports filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission – that are available on our website at www.ffnwb.com and on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

    Any of the forward-looking statements that we make in this Press Release and in the other public statements are based upon management’s beliefs and assumptions at the time they are made and may turn out to be wrong because of the inaccurate assumptions we might make, because of the factors illustrated above or because of other factors that we cannot foresee. Therefore, these factors should be considered in evaluating the forward-looking statements, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. We do not undertake and specifically disclaim any obligation to revise any forward-looking statements to reflect the occurrence of anticipated or unanticipated events or circumstances after the date of such statements.

    For more information, contact:
    Joseph W. Kiley III, President and Chief Executive Officer
    Rich Jacobson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
    (425) 255-4400

    FIRST FINANCIAL NORTHWEST, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
    Consolidated Balance Sheets
    (Dollars in thousands)
    (Unaudited)
     
    Assets Sep 30,
    2024    		   Jun 30,
    2024    		   Sep 30,
    2023    		   Three
    Month
    Change    		   One
    Year
    Change
                       
    Cash on hand and in banks $ 8,423     $ 10,811     $ 8,074     (22.1 )%   4.3 %
    Interest-earning deposits with banks   72,884       48,173       49,618     51.3     46.9  
    Investments available-for-sale, at fair value   156,609       160,693       204,975     (2.5 )   (23.6 )
    Investments held-to-maturity, at amortized cost   2,462       2,456       2,450     0.2     0.5  
    Loans receivable, net of allowance of $16,265, $14,796, and $15,306 respectively   1,126,146       1,135,067       1,168,079     (0.8 )   (3.6 )
    Federal Home Loan Bank (“FHLB”) stock, at cost   5,403       8,823       6,803     (38.8 )   (20.6 )
    Accrued interest receivable   6,638       6,632       7,263     0.1     (8.6 )
    Deferred tax assets, net   2,690       2,360       3,156     14.0     (14.8 )
    Premises and equipment, net   18,584       19,007       19,921     (2.2 )   (6.7 )
    Bank owned life insurance (“BOLI”), net   38,661       38,368       37,398     0.8     3.4  
    Prepaid expenses and other assets   8,898       11,447       13,673     (22.3 )   (34.9 )
    Right of use asset (“ROU”), net   2,473       2,670       2,818     (7.4 )   (12.2 )
    Goodwill   889       889       889     0.0     0.0  
    Core deposit intangible, net   326       357       451     (8.7 )   (27.7 )
    Total assets $ 1,451,086     $ 1,447,753     $ 1,525,568     0.2     (4.9 )
                       
    Liabilities and Stockholders’ Equity                  
                       
    Deposits                  
    Noninterest-bearing deposits $ 100,466     $ 99,842     $ 104,164     0.6     (3.6 )
    Interest-bearing deposits   1,066,889       988,332       1,106,246     7.9     (3.6 )
    Total deposits   1,167,355       1,088,174       1,210,410     7.3     (3.6 )
    Advances from the FHLB   100,000       176,000       125,000     (43.2 )   (20.0 )
    Advance payments from borrowers for taxes and insurance   5,211       2,764       4,760     88.5     9.5  
    Lease liability, net   2,673       2,866       3,011     (6.7 )   (11.2 )
    Accrued interest payable   294       1,117       2,646     (73.7 )   (88.9 )
    Other liabilities   15,340       16,139       20,506     (5.0 )   (25.2 )
    Total liabilities   1,290,873       1,287,060       1,366,333     0.3     (5.5 )
                       
    Commitments and contingencies                  
                       
    Stockholders’ Equity                  
    Preferred stock, $0.01 par value; authorized 10,000,000 shares; no shares issued or outstanding   –       –       –     n/a   n/a
    Common stock, $0.01 par value; authorized 90,000,000 shares; issued and outstanding                  
    9,213,969 shares at September 30, 2024; 9,179,825 shares at June 30, 2024; and 9,179,510 shares at September 30, 2023   92       92       92     0.0     0.0  
    Additional paid-in capital   72,916       72,953       72,926     (0.1 )   (0.0 )
    Retained earnings   93,692       94,300       96,206     (0.6 )   (2.6 )
    Accumulated other comprehensive loss, net of tax   (6,487 )     (6,652 )     (9,989 )   (2.5 )   (35.1 )
    Total stockholders’ equity   160,213       160,693       159,235     (0.3 )   0.6  
    Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity $ 1,451,086     $ 1,447,753     $ 1,525,568     0.2 %   (4.9 )%
    FIRST FINANCIAL NORTHWEST, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
    Consolidated Income Statements
    (Dollars in thousands, except per share data)
    (Unaudited)
     
      Quarter Ended        
      Sep 30,
    2024    		   Jun 30,
    2024    		   Sep 30,
    2023    		   Three
    Month
    Change    		   One
    Year
    Change
    Interest income                  
    Loans, including fees $ 16,658     $ 16,805     $ 16,918     (0.9 )%   (1.5 )%
    Investments   1,744       1,886       2,118     (7.5 )   (17.7 )
    Interest-earning deposits with banks   863       482       525     79.0     64.4  
    Dividends on FHLB Stock   150       144       113     4.2     32.7  
    Total interest income   19,415       19,317       19,674     0.5     (1.3 )
    Interest expense                  
    Deposits   9,748       9,498       9,205     2.6     5.9  
    Other borrowings   1,213       849       766     42.9     58.4  
    Total interest expense   10,961       10,347       9,971     5.9     9.9  
    Net interest income   8,454       8,970       9,703     (5.8 )   (12.9 )
    Provision (recapture of provision) for credit losses   1,575       (200 )     (300 )   (887.5 )   (625.0 )
    Net interest income after provision (recapture of provision) for credit losses   6,879       9,170       10,003     (25.0 )   (31.2 )
                       
    Noninterest income                  
    BOLI income   295       310       244     (4.8 )   20.9  
    Wealth management revenue   42       54       53     (22.2 )   (20.8 )
    Deposit related fees   236       240       247     (1.7 )   (4.5 )
    Loan related fees   96       97       79     (1.0 )   21.5  
    Other income (expense), net   8       (28 )     54     (128.6 )   (85.2 )
    Total noninterest income   677       673       677     0.6     0.0  
                       
    Noninterest expense                  
    Salaries and employee benefits   4,606       3,817       5,018     20.7     (8.2 )
    Occupancy and equipment   1,183       1,225       1,193     (3.4 )   (0.8 )
    Professional fees   585       749       553     (21.9 )   5.8  
    Data processing   838       856       742     (2.1 )   12.9  
    Regulatory assessments   165       170       200     (2.9 )   (17.5 )
    Insurance and bond premiums   113       118       111     (4.2 )   1.8  
    Marketing   46       47       97     (2.1 )   (52.6 )
    Other general and administrative   952       959       856     (0.7 )   11.2  
    Total noninterest expense   8,488       7,941       8,770     6.9     (3.2 )
    (Loss) income before federal income tax (benefit) provision   (932 )     1,902       1,910     (149.0 )   (148.8 )
    Federal income tax (benefit) provision   (324 )     347       409     (193.4 )   (179.2 )
    Net (loss) income $ (608 )   $ 1,555     $ 1,501     (139.1 )%   (140.5 )%
                       
    Basic (loss) earnings per share $ (0.07 )   $ 0.17     $ 0.16          
    Diluted (loss) earnings per share $ (0.07 )   $ 0.17     $ 0.16          
    Weighted average number of common shares outstanding   9,190,146       9,168,414       9,127,568          
    Weighted average number of diluted shares outstanding   9,190,146       9,235,446       9,150,059          
     

    The following table presents a breakdown of the loan portfolio (unaudited):

      September 30, 2024 June 30, 2024 September 30, 2023
      Amount   Percent   Amount   Percent   Amount   Percent
      (Dollars in thousands)
    Commercial real estate:                      
    Residential:                      
    Multifamily $ 132,811     11.6 %   $ 134,302     11.7 %   $ 140,022     11.7 %
    Total multifamily residential   132,811     11.6       134,302     11.7       140,022     11.7  
                           
    Non-residential:                      
    Retail   118,840     10.4       118,154     10.4       130,101     11.0  
    Office   73,778     6.5       74,032     6.4       72,773     6.1  
    Hotel / motel   54,716     4.8       55,018     4.8       63,954     5.4  
    Storage   32,443     2.8       32,636     2.8       33,229     2.8  
    Mobile home park   22,443     2.0       23,159     2.0       21,285     1.8  
    Warehouse   18,743     1.6       18,868     1.6       19,446     1.6  
    Nursing Home   11,407     1.0       11,474     1.0       11,676     1.0  
    Other non-residential   30,719     2.7       32,139     2.8       42,227     3.7  
    Total non-residential   363,089     31.8       365,480     31.8       394,691     33.4  
                           
    Construction/land:                      
    One-to-four family residential   42,846     3.8       39,908     3.5       43,532     3.7  
    Multifamily   7,227     0.6       6,078     0.5       2,043     0.2  
    Land development   10,148     0.8       9,800     0.8       9,766     0.8  
    Total construction/land   60,221     5.2       55,786     4.8       55,341     4.7  
                           
    One-to-four family residential:                      
    Permanent owner occupied   279,744     24.5       283,516     24.7       260,970     22.1  
    Permanent non-owner occupied   221,127     19.4       225,423     19.6       232,238     19.6  
    Total one-to-four family residential   500,871     43.9       508,939     44.3       493,208     41.7  
                           
    Business:                      
    Aircraft   –     0.0       –     0.0       1,981     0.2  
    Small Business Administration (“SBA”)   1,745     0.2       1,763     0.2       1,810     0.3  
    Paycheck Protection Plan (“PPP”)   238     0.0       316     0.0       551     0.0  
    Other business   12,416     1.1       12,984     1.1       23,633     1.9  
    Total business   14,399     1.3       15,063     1.3       27,975     2.4  
                           
    Consumer:                      
    Classic, collectible and other auto   58,085     5.1       56,758     4.9       59,955     5.1  
    Other consumer   12,935     1.1       13,535     1.2       12,193     1.0  
    Total consumer   71,020     6.2       70,293     6.1       72,148     6.1  
                           
    Total loans   1,142,411     100.0 %     1,149,863     100.0 %     1,183,385     100.0 %
    Less:                      
    ACL   16,265           14,796           15,306      
    Loans receivable, net $ 1,126,146         $ 1,135,067         $ 1,168,079      
                           
    Concentrations of credit: (1)                      
    Construction loans as % of total capital   36.8 %         34.8 %         37.8 %    
    Total non-owner occupied commercial
    real estate as % of total capital    		   296.2 %         298.8 %         328.1 %    
     

    (1) Concentrations of credit percentages are for First Financial Northwest Bank only using classifications in accordance with FDIC regulatory guidelines.

    FIRST FINANCIAL NORTHWEST, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
    Key Financial Measures
    (Unaudited)
     
      At or For the Quarter Ended
      Sep 30,   Jun 30,   Mar 31,   Dec 31,   Sep 30,
        2024       2024       2024       2023       2023  
      (Dollars in thousands, except per share data)
    Performance Ratios: (1)                  
    Return on assets   (0.17 )%     0.43 %     (0.29 )%     0.31 %     0.39 %
    Return on equity   (1.50 )     3.88       (2.67 )     2.97       3.71  
    Dividend payout ratio   0.00       76.47       (108.33 )     100.00       79.26  
    Equity-to-assets ratio   11.04       11.10       10.91       10.74       10.44  
    Tangible equity ratio (2)   10.97       11.02       10.83       10.66       10.36  
    Net interest margin   2.46       2.66       2.55       2.54       2.69  
    Average interest-earning assets to average interest-bearing liabilities   116.46       117.01       116.40       115.84       116.94  
    Efficiency ratio   92.96       82.35       116.97       85.17       84.49  
    Noninterest expense as a percent of average total assets   2.32       2.21       3.05       2.18       2.29  
    Book value per common share $ 17.39     $ 17.51     $ 17.46     $ 17.61     $ 17.35  
    Tangible book value per share (2)   17.26       17.37       17.32       17.47       17.20  
                       
    Capital Ratios: (3)                  
    Tier 1 leverage ratio   10.86 %     10.91 %     10.41 %     10.18 %     10.25 %
    Common equity tier 1 capital ratio   15.43       15.39       14.98       14.90       14.75  
    Tier 1 capital ratio   15.43       15.39       14.98       14.90       14.75  
    Total capital ratio   16.68       16.64       16.24       16.15       16.00  
                       
    Asset Quality Ratios: (4)                  
    Nonaccrual loans as a percent of total loans   0.07 %     0.41 %     0.02 %     0.02 %     0.02 %
    Nonaccrual loans as a percent of total assets   0.06       0.32       0.01       0.01       0.01  
    ACL as a percent of total loans   1.42       1.29       1.30       1.28       1.29  
    Net charge-offs to average loans receivable, net   0.00       0.00       0.00       0.00       0.00  
                       
    Allowance for Credit Losses:                  
    ACL ‒ loans                  
    Beginning balance $ 14,796     $ 14,996     $ 15,306     $ 15,306     $ 15,606  
    Provision (recapture of provision) for credit losses   1,500       (200 )     (300 )     –       (300 )
    Charge-offs   (31 )     –       (10 )     –       –  
    Recoveries   –       –       –       –       –  
    Ending balance $ 16,265     $ 14,796     $ 14,996     $ 15,306     $ 15,306  
                       
    Allowance for unfunded commitments                  
    Beginning balance $ 564     $ 564     $ 439     $ 439     $ 439  
    Provision for credit losses   75       –       125       –       –  
    Ending balance $ 639     $ 564     $ 564     $ 439     $ 439  
                       
    Provision (recapture of provision) for credit losses                  
    ACL – loans $ 1,500     $ (200 )   $ (300 )   $ –     $ (300 )
    Allowance for unfunded commitments   75       –       125       –       –  
    Total $ 1,575     $ (200 )   $ (175 )   $ –     $ (300 )
     

    (1) Performance ratios are calculated on an annualized basis.
    (2) Non-GAAP financial measures. Refer to Non-GAAP Financial Measures at the end of this press release for a reconciliation to the nearest GAAP equivalents.
    (3) Capital ratios are for First Financial Northwest Bank only.
    (4) Loans are reported net of undisbursed funds.

    FIRST FINANCIAL NORTHWEST, INC. AND SUBSIDIARIES
    Key Financial Measures
    (Unaudited)
     
      At or For the Quarter Ended
      Sep 30,   Jun 30,   Mar 31,   Dec 31,   Sep 30,
        2024       2024       2024       2023       2023  
      (Dollars in thousands)
    Yields and Costs: (1)                  
    Yield on loans   5.86 %     5.93 %     5.88 %     5.83 %     5.73 %
    Yield on investments   4.30       4.38       4.11       4.11       3.98  
    Yield on interest-earning deposits   5.27       5.25       5.28       5.32       5.18  
    Yield on FHLB stock   7.73       8.63       7.79       7.29       6.57  
    Yield on interest-earning assets   5.66 %     5.73 %     5.62 %     5.56 %     5.46 %
                       
    Cost of interest-bearing deposits   3.80 %     3.71 %     3.69 %     3.62 %     3.33 %
    Cost of borrowings   3.19       2.64       2.65       2.40       2.42  
    Cost of interest-bearing liabilities   3.72 %     3.59 %     3.58 %     3.50 %     3.24 %
                       
    Cost of total deposits (2)   3.47 %     3.38 %     3.38 %     3.31 %     3.03 %
    Cost of funds (3)   3.44 %     3.30 %     3.31 %     3.23 %     2.97 %
                       
    Average Balances:                  
    Loans $ 1,131,473     $ 1,139,017     $ 1,160,156     $ 1,167,339     $ 1,171,483  
    Investments   161,232       173,102       202,106       206,837       211,291  
    Interest-earning deposits   65,149       36,959       37,032       65,680       40,202  
    FHLB stock   7,719       6,714       6,554       6,584       6,820  
    Total interest-earning assets $ 1,365,573     $ 1,355,792     $ 1,405,848     $ 1,446,440     $ 1,429,796  
                       
    Interest-bearing deposits $ 1,021,041     $ 1,029,608     $ 1,082,168     $ 1,127,690     $ 1,097,324  
    Borrowings   151,478       129,126       125,604       120,978       125,402  
    Total interest-bearing liabilities   1,172,519       1,158,734       1,207,772       1,248,668       1,222,726  
    Noninterest-bearing deposits   96,003       101,196       99,173       102,869       109,384  
    Total deposits and borrowings $ 1,268,522     $ 1,259,930     $ 1,306,945     $ 1,351,537     $ 1,332,110  
                       
    Average assets $ 1,453,431     $ 1,446,207     $ 1,495,753     $ 1,538,955     $ 1,522,224  
    Average stockholders’ equity   161,569       161,057       161,823       159,659       160,299  
     

    (1) Yields and costs are annualized.
    (2) Includes noninterest-bearing deposits.
    (3) Includes total borrowings and deposits (including noninterest-bearing deposits).

    Non-GAAP Financial Measures

    In addition to financial results presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (“GAAP”) utilized in the United States, this earnings release contains non-GAAP financial measures that include tangible equity, tangible assets, tangible book value per share, and the tangible equity-to-assets ratio. The Company believes that these non-GAAP financial measures and ratios as presented are useful for both investors and management to understand the effects of goodwill and core deposit intangible, net and provides an alternative view of the Company’s performance over time and in comparison to the Company’s competitors. Non-GAAP financial measures have limitations, are not required to be uniformly applied and are not audited. They should not be considered in isolation and are not a substitute for other measures in this earnings release that are presented in accordance with GAAP. These non-GAAP measures may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies.

    The following tables provide a reconciliation between the GAAP and non-GAAP measures:

      Quarter Ended
        Sep 30,
    2024    		       Jun 30,
    2024    		       Mar 31,
    2024    		       Dec 31,
    2023    		       Sep 30,
    2023    		  
      (Dollars in thousands, except per share data)
    Tangible equity to tangible assets and tangible book value per share:
                                           
    Total stockholders’ equity (GAAP) $ 160,213     $ 160,693     $ 160,183     $ 161,660     $ 159,235  
    Less:                  
    Goodwill   889       889       889       889       889  
    Core deposit intangible, net   326       357       388       419       451  
    Tangible equity (Non-GAAP) $ 158,998     $ 159,447     $ 158,906     $ 160,352     $ 157,895  
                       
    Total assets (GAAP) $ 1,451,086     $ 1,447,753     $ 1,468,350     $ 1,505,082     $ 1,525,568  
    Less:                  
    Goodwill   889       889       889       889       889  
    Core deposit intangible, net   326       357       388       419       451  
    Tangible assets (Non-GAAP) $ 1,449,871     $ 1,446,507     $ 1,467,073     $ 1,503,774     $ 1,524,228  
                       
    Common shares outstanding at period end   9,213,969       9,179,825       9,174,425       9,179,510       9,179,510  
                       
    Equity-to-assets ratio (GAAP)   11.04 %     11.10 %     10.91 %     10.74 %     10.44 %
    Tangible equity-to-tangible assets ratio (Non-GAAP)   10.97       11.02       10.83       10.66       10.36  
    Book value per common share (GAAP) $ 17.39     $ 17.51     $ 17.46     $ 17.61     $ 17.35  
    Tangible book value per share (Non-GAAP)   17.26       17.37       17.32       17.47       17.20  

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis announces 2024 Board of Directors election results

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis (“FHLBank Indianapolis” or “Bank”) today announced the results of the election of two Indiana Member Directors and three Independent Directors to its Board of Directors (“Board”). The following individuals were elected to the Board and will each serve four-year terms beginning Jan. 1, 2025.

    The new Indiana Member Directors are:

    • Dan L. Moore, executive chairman, Home Bank, S.B., Martinsville, Ind. Previously, Moore served as its chairman, president and CEO and director. Moore served on the Board from 2011 to 2022 and was Board Chair from 2019 to 2022. He also served as Chairman of the Council of Federal Home Loan Banks in 2022.
    • Jamie R. Shinabarger, CEO, Springs Valley Bank & Trust Co., Jasper, Ind. Shinabarger also serves on the bank’s board of directors and of SVB&T Corp., the bank’s holding company in French Lick, Ind.

    The new Independent Directors are:

    • Kathryn M. Dominguez, professor of public policy and economics, University of Michigan’s Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy in Ann Arbor, Mich. She also serves as the school’s Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and is the co-faculty director of the Center on Finance, Law and Policy. Dominguez was appointed to the Board as an Independent Director to fill a partial term in 2023, and currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Risk Oversight Committee.
    • Charlotte C. Henry, former chief information technology officer for the UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust, Detroit. Henry has been an Independent Director on the Board since 2017. She currently serves as the Vice Chair of the Board’s Security and Technology Committee, and formerly served as the Chair of that committee.
    • Todd E. Sears (Public Interest Independent Director), vice president of development, Cohen Esrey, Indianapolis. Previously, Sears served as chief investment officer and chief financial officer of Valeo Financial Advisors and was executive vice president of research, policy and strategy at Kittle Property Group, Inc., in Indianapolis. Sears previously served as the executive vice president for the non-profit CDFI, Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership. He has served as an Independent Director on the Board since 2021 and previously served on the Board’s Affordable Housing Advisory Council from 2012-2018.

    Annually, the Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency determines the size of the Board and designates at least a majority, but no more than 60%, of the directorships as member directorships and the remainder as independent directorships. Independent directors are nominated by the Board after consultation with the Bank’s Affordable Housing Advisory Council and the Federal Housing Finance Agency.

    Media contact:
    Scott Thien, Sr. Communications Lead
    317-902-3103
    sthien@fhlbi.com

    Building Partnerships. Serving Communities
    FHLBank Indianapolis is a regional bank in the Federal Home Loan Bank System. FHLBanks are government-sponsored enterprises created by Congress to provide access to low-cost funding for their member financial institutions, with particular attention paid to providing solutions that support the housing and small business needs of members’ customers. FHLBanks are privately capitalized and funded, and they receive no Congressional appropriations. One of 11 independent regional cooperative banks across the U.S., FHLBank Indianapolis is owned by its Indiana and Michigan financial institution members, including commercial banks, credit unions, insurance companies, savings institutions and community development financial institutions. For more information about FHLBank Indianapolis, visit www.fhlbi.com and follow the Bank on LinkedIn, and Instagram and X at @FHLBankIndy.

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI United Kingdom: InsideAIR podcast episode 102: From flyer to fighter29 Oct 2024

    Source: United Kingdom – Royal Air Force

    Head of Flying Training for the Royal Navy, Army and RAF, Air Commodore Rob Caine’s job is to get as many aircrew as possible through flying training to the front line.

    He told Squadron Leader Peter Lisney of InsideAIR, how the system has been changing and how augmented reality and psychological skills training are now both playing a part in producing the UK’s next front line pilots.

    Listen to more episodes of Inside AIR.

    InsideAIR is produced for the Royal Air Force by RAF Media Reserves. Theme music by RAF Music Services.

    MIL OSI United Kingdom –

  • MIL-OSI Canada: Scott Shortliffe to the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications

    Source: Government of Canada News

    For our part, the CRTC imposes requirements that help CBC/Radio-Canada meet its mandate in both official languages, across all its services. The CRTC renewed CBC/Radio-Canada’s broadcasting licence in July 2022 and modified some of its requirements.

    Ottawa, Ontario
    October 29, 2024

    Scott Shortliffe, Executive Director, Broadcasting
    Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)

    Check against delivery

    Good morning and thank you for inviting us to appear before your committee.

    Before I begin, I would like to thank the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people for having me here as a guest on their unceded, unsurrendered territory. I would also like to thank the Anishnaabeg people for being stewards of the land and waters in this area since time immemorial.

    I am joined today by my colleague Michael Craig, Director of Television Programming.

    As you know, the CRTC is an independent, quasi-judicial tribunal that regulates the Canadian communications sector in the public interest. The CRTC holds public consultations on telecommunications and broadcasting matters and makes decisions based on the public record.

    On the broadcasting side, we are implementing the Online Streaming Act and modernizing Canada’s broadcasting framework. This is in addition to our ongoing work in broadcasting, which includes issuing licences and determining the conditions of service under which broadcasters are allowed to operate in Canada. One of those broadcasters, of course, is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or CBC/Radio-Canada, whose programming is the subject of today’s meeting.

    For our part, the CRTC imposes requirements that help CBC/Radio-Canada meet its mandate in both official languages, across all its services. The CRTC renewed CBC/Radio-Canada’s broadcasting licence in July 2022 and modified some of its requirements.

    The CRTC imposed enhanced reporting requirements on CBC/Radio-Canada to allow stakeholders to assess its performance in meeting its mandate, in particular for Indigenous peoples, racialized persons, the 2SLGBTQI+ community, and others. At the same time, the CRTC removed some of the requirements where CBC/Radio-Canada had routinely exceeded those requirements, such as those on independent production. To ensure compliance, we receive detailed annual reports from CBC/Radio-Canada on different aspects of its licences, in addition to other reporting requirements.

    In September 2022, the Governor in Council directed the CRTC to reconsider certain aspects of CBC/Radio-Canada’s licence conditions. This was after petitions were filed by stakeholders raising concerns about some of the conditions. Specifically, the Governor in Council asked how the CRTC would ensure that CBC/Radio-Canada would continue to make a significant contribution to local news, children’s programming, original French-language programming and independent programming.

    Following the referral back, Parliament passed the Online Streaming Act. We are currently reviewing those elements of the licence touched on by the reconsideration, while also examining how the Online Streaming Act can help us ensure that these elements are addressed. We are continuing to monitor CBC/Radio-Canada’s activities through its annual reporting. Currently, these activities meet or exceed the CBC/Radio-Canada requirements.

    While the review process is ongoing, let me assure the Committee that the CRTC prioritizes the issues connected to CBC programming that you are studying, especially the availability of local and regional radio, television, and online services. The availability of local content is a key priority of our work in implementing the Online Streaming Act.

    The changes that are needed to the broadcasting framework are substantial and complex. There are many interconnected issues to be addressed. That’s why we are consulting widely while also moving quickly.

    In June, we released a major decision that will require online streaming services to make a base contribution to Canadian broadcasting. That funding will go to funds that have a proven track record of successfully supporting regional and local news, independent and emerging artists, and other areas of immediate need.

    Additionally, we will soon be launching public consultations on issues of importance to Canadians, such as providing more flexibility to traditional radio broadcasters by updating regulatory requirements, and updating the definition of Canadian content for the audiovisual sector. We will also have proceedings considering the relationships between small, medium and large players in the traditional broadcasting system, including online streaming companies, as well as looking at radio and audio streaming in Canada, including how to define audio content and how to support Canadian music.

    We look forward to hearing from Canadians on these issues.

    We have also prioritized our work around the Online New Act, noting that it will provide help to news organizations across Canada, including CBC/Radio-Canada. Just yesterday, we issued a decision on Google’s exemption request, clearing the way for it to provide funding to the Canadian Journalism Collective to be distributed to Canadian news organizations.

    Thank you again for the opportunity to appear today. The CRTC is focused on what Canadians need from their broadcasters and broadcasting system.

    Thank you.

    MIL OSI Canada News –

  • MIL-OSI: Sono Group N.V. to Present at the AI & Technology Virtual Investor Conference October 31st

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    MUNICH, Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The solar technology company Sono Group N.V. (OTCQB: SEVCF) (hereafter referred to as “Sono” or the “Company”, parent company to Sono Motors GmbH or “Sono Motors”) is pleased to announce that George O’Leary, Managing Director, CEO and CFO of Sono, will present live at the AI & Technology Virtual Investor Conference hosted by VirtualInvestorConferences.com, on October 31st, 2024.

    DATE: October 31st
    TIME: 1:00 – 1:30 pm ET
    LINK: https://bit.ly/3ASgcyv
    Available for 1×1 meetings: November 1, 4 and 5

    This will be a live, interactive online event where investors are invited to ask the company questions in real-time. If attendees are not able to join the event live on the day of the conference, an archived webcast will also be made available after the event.

    It is recommended that online investors pre-register and run the online system check to expedite participation and receive event updates.

    Learn more about the event at www.virtualinvestorconferences.com.

    Recent Company Highlights

    About Sono Group N.V.

    Sono Group N.V. (OTCQB: SEVCF) and its wholly owned subsidiary Sono Motors GmbH are on a pioneering mission to accelerate the revolution of mobility by making every commercial vehicle solar. Their disruptive solar technology has been developed to enable seamless integration into all types of commercial vehicles to reduce the impact of CO2 emissions and pave the way for climate-friendly mobility. The companies’ unmatched solar technology has multiple applications in commercial vehicles such as buses, trailers, trucks, vans and recreational vehicles.

    About Virtual Investor Conferences®
    Virtual Investor Conferences (VIC) is the leading proprietary investor conference series that provides an interactive forum for publicly traded companies to seamlessly present directly to investors.

    Providing a real-time investor engagement solution, VIC is specifically designed to offer companies more efficient investor access. Replicating the components of an on-site investor conference, VIC offers companies enhanced capabilities to connect with investors, schedule targeted one-on-one meetings and enhance their presentations with dynamic video content. Accelerating the next level of investor engagement, Virtual Investor Conferences delivers leading investor communications to a global network of retail and institutional investors.

    CONTACTS:
    Sono Group N.V.
    Press:
    press@sonomotors.com | ir.sonomotors.com/news-events
    Investors:
    ir@sonomotors.com | ir.sonomotors.com
    LinkedIn:
    https://www.linkedin.com/company/sonogroupnv

    Virtual Investor Conferences
    John M. Viglotti
    SVP Corporate Services, Investor Access
    OTC Markets Group
    (212) 220-2221
    johnv@otcmarkets.com

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: Eagle Bancorp Montana Earns $2.7 Million, or $0.34 per Diluted Share, in the Third Quarter of 2024; Declares Quarterly Cash Dividend of $0.1425 Per Share

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    HELENA, Mont., Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Eagle Bancorp Montana, Inc. (NASDAQ: EBMT), (the “Company,” “Eagle”), the holding company of Opportunity Bank of Montana (the “Bank”), today reported net income of $2.7 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2024, compared to $1.7 million, or $0.22 per diluted share, in the preceding quarter, and $2.6 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2023. In the first nine months of 2024, net income was $6.3 million, or $0.81 per diluted share, compared to $7.9 million, or $1.01 per diluted share, in the first nine months of 2023.

    Eagle’s board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.1425 per share on October 17, 2024. The dividend will be payable December 6, 2024, to shareholders of record November 15, 2024. The current dividend represents an annualized yield of 3.49% based on recent market prices.

    “We produced improved top and bottom line operating results during the third quarter of 2024, with net interest income and noninterest income both increasing compared to the second quarter of 2024,” said Laura F. Clark, President and CEO. “As in previous quarters, we continued to remain selective on the loans we added during the quarter, while adhering to disciplined loan pricing. The result was tempered loan growth during the third quarter of 1.1%, and 4.0% year-over-year. Total deposits increased 2.0% during the quarter over the linked quarter, as we continue to maintain our attractive deposit mix. With our strong deposit franchise, pristine credit quality, and ample capital levels, we are well positioned for growth throughout the remainder of the year and into 2025.”

    Third Quarter 2024 Highlights (at or for the three-month period ended September 30, 2024, except where noted):

    • Net income was $2.7 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2024, compared to $1.7 million, or $0.22 per diluted share, in the preceding quarter, and $2.6 million, or $0.34 per diluted share, in the third quarter a year ago.
    • Net interest margin (“NIM”) was 3.34% in the third quarter of 2024, a seven basis point contraction compared to 3.41% in the preceding quarter and the third quarter a year ago.
    • Revenues (net interest income before the provision for credit losses, plus noninterest income) were $20.8 million in the third quarter of 2024, compared to $19.9 million in the preceding quarter and $21.6 million in the third quarter a year ago.
    • The accretion of the loan purchase discount into loan interest income from acquisitions was $167,000 in the third quarter of 2024, compared to accretion on purchased loans from acquisitions of $304,000 in the preceding quarter.
    • Total loans increased 4.0% to $1.53 billion, at September 30, 2024, compared to $1.48 billion a year earlier, and increased 1.1% compared to $1.52 billion at June 30, 2024.
    • Total deposits increased $35.0 million or 2.2% to $1.65 billion at September 30, 2024, compared to a year earlier, and increased $31.6 million or 2.0%, compared to June 30, 2024.
    • The allowance for credit losses represented 1.12% of portfolio loans and 356.7% of nonperforming loans at September 30, 2024, compared to 1.10% of portfolio loans and 209.3% of nonperforming loans at September 30, 2023.
    • The Company’s available borrowing capacity was approximately $348.1 million at September 30, 2024.
            September 30, 2024
    (Dollars in thousands)     Borrowings Outstanding Remaining Borrowing Capacity
    Federal Home Loan Bank advances $ 219,167 $ 219,365
    Federal Reserve Bank discount window   –   28,734
    Correspondent bank lines of credit   –   100,000
    Total       $ 219,167 $ 348,099
               
    • The Company paid a quarterly cash dividend in the second quarter of $0.1425 per share on September 6, 2024, to shareholders of record August 16, 2024.

    Balance Sheet Results

    Eagle’s total assets increased 4.0% to $2.15 billion at September 30, 2024, compared to $2.06 billion a year ago, and increased 2.2% compared to $2.10 billion three months earlier. The investment securities portfolio totaled $307.0 million at September 30, 2024, compared to $308.8 million a year ago, and $306.9 million at June 30, 2024.

    Eagle originated $58.0 million in new residential mortgages during the quarter and sold $51.0 million in residential mortgages, with an average gross margin on sale of mortgage loans of approximately 3.31%. This production compares to residential mortgage originations of $60.6 million in the preceding quarter with sales of $53.2 million and an average gross margin on sale of mortgage loans of approximately 3.01%. Mortgage volumes remain low as rates have continued to be elevated relative to rates on existing mortgages.

    Total loans increased $58.9 million, or 4.0%, compared to a year ago, and $17.2 million, or 1.1%, from three months earlier. Commercial real estate loans increased 5.2% to $644.0 million at September 30, 2024, compared to $612.0 million a year earlier. Commercial real estate loans were comprised of 69.3% non-owner occupied and 30.7% owner occupied at September 30, 2024. Agricultural and farmland loans increased 5.8% to $290.0 million at September 30, 2024, compared to $274.1 million a year earlier. Residential mortgage loans increased 6.7% to $156.8 million, compared to $146.9 million a year earlier. Commercial loans increased 10.2% to $143.2 million, compared to $130.0 million a year ago. Commercial construction and development loans decreased 17.3% to $125.3 million, compared to $151.6 million a year ago. Home equity loans increased 12.5% to $93.6 million, residential construction loans increased 8.5% to $52.2 million, and consumer loans decreased 1.3% to $29.4 million, compared to a year ago.

    “Our deposit mix continued to shift towards higher yielding deposits due to the higher interest rate environment. However, we anticipate deposit rates will continue to stabilize or improve following the recent Fed rate cuts,” said Miranda Spaulding, CFO.

    Total deposits increased to $1.65 billion at September 30, 2024, compared to $1.62 billion at September 30, 2023, and at June 30, 2024. Noninterest-bearing checking accounts represented 25.4%, interest-bearing checking accounts represented 12.7%, savings accounts represented 12.9%, money market accounts comprised 21.3% and time certificates of deposit made up 27.7% of the total deposit portfolio at September 30, 2024. Time certificates of deposit include $22.1 million in brokered certificates at September 30, 2024, compared to $40.0 million at September 30, 2023, and $26.2 million at June 30, 2024. The average cost of total deposits was 1.76% in the third quarter of 2024, compared to 1.70% in the preceding quarter and 1.28% in the third quarter of 2023. The estimated amount of uninsured deposits was approximately $307.0 million, or 18% of total deposits, at September 30, 2024, compared to $284.0 million, or 17% of total deposits, at June 30, 2024.

    Shareholders’ equity was $177.7 million at September 30, 2024, compared to $157.3 million a year earlier and $170.2 million three months earlier. Book value per share increased to $22.17 at September 30, 2024, compared to $19.69 a year earlier and $21.23 three months earlier. Tangible book value per share, a non-GAAP financial measure calculated by dividing shareholders’ equity, less goodwill and core deposit intangible, by common shares outstanding, was $17.23 at September 30, 2024, compared to $14.55 a year earlier and $16.25 three months earlier.  

    Operating Results

    “Our core NIM declined slightly during the third quarter, compared to the preceding quarter, due to relatively flat yields on interest earning assets and cost of funds expansion,” said Clark. “We anticipate continued stabilization and eventual improvement in our cost of funds as we continue through this rate cycle.”

    Eagle’s NIM was 3.34% in the third quarter of 2024, a seven basis point contraction compared to 3.41% in both the preceding quarter and the third quarter a year ago. The interest accretion on acquired loans totaled $167,000 and resulted in a three basis-point increase in the NIM during the third quarter of 2024, compared to $304,000 and a seven basis-point increase in the NIM during the preceding quarter. Funding costs for the third quarter of 2024 were 2.89%, compared to 2.78% in the second quarter of 2024 and 2.37% in the third quarter of 2023. Average yields on interest earning assets for the third quarter of 2024 increased to 5.66%, compared to 5.64% in the second quarter of 2024 and 5.27% in the third quarter a year ago. For the first nine months of 2024, the NIM was 3.36% compared to 3.57% for the first nine months of 2023.

    Net interest income, before the provision for credit losses, increased to $15.8 million in the third quarter of 2024, compared to $15.6 million in both the second quarter of 2024, and in the third quarter of 2023. Year-to-date, net interest income decreased 1.3% to $46.6 million, compared to $47.3 million in the same period one year earlier.

    Revenues for the third quarter of 2024 increased 4.4% to $20.8 million, compared to $19.9 million in the preceding quarter and decreased 3.9% compared to $21.6 million in the third quarter a year ago. In the first nine months of 2024, revenues were $59.9 million, compared to $64.2 million in the first nine months of 2023. The decrease compared to the first nine months a year ago was largely due to lower volumes in mortgage banking activity.

    Total noninterest income increased 16.7% to $5.0 million in the third quarter of 2024, compared to $4.3 million in the preceding quarter, and decreased 17.4% compared to $6.0 million in the third quarter a year ago. The increase from the preceding quarter was largely due to income from bank owned life insurance of $724,000. Net mortgage banking income, the largest component of noninterest income, totaled $2.6 million in the third quarter of 2024, compared to $2.4 million in the preceding quarter and $4.3 million in the third quarter a year ago. This decrease compared to the third quarter a year ago was largely driven by a decline in net gain on sale of mortgage loans. This was impacted by lower mortgage loan volumes. In the first nine months of 2024, noninterest income decreased 21.9% to $13.2 million, compared to $16.9 million in the first nine months of 2023. Net mortgage banking income decreased 36.0% to $7.2 million in the first nine months of 2024, compared to $11.3 million in the first nine months of 2023. These decreases were driven by a decline in net gain on sale of mortgage loans.

    Third quarter noninterest expense was $17.3 million, which was unchanged compared to the preceding quarter and a 3.4% decrease compared to $17.9 million in the third quarter a year ago. Lower salaries and employee benefits contributed to the decrease compared to the year ago quarter. In the first nine months of 2024, noninterest expense decreased 3.0% to $51.6 million, compared to $53.2 million in the first nine months of 2023.

    For the third quarter of 2024, the Company recorded income tax expense of $529,000. This compared to income tax expense of $444,000 in the preceding quarter and $524,000 in the third quarter of 2023. The effective tax rate for the third quarter of 2024 was 16.3%, compared to 16.6% for the third quarter of 2023. The year-to-date effective tax rate was 17.5% for 2024 compared to 19.5% for the same period in 2023.

    Credit Quality

    During the third quarter of 2024, Eagle recorded a provision for credit losses of $277,000. This compared to a $412,000 provision for credit losses in the preceding quarter and $588,000 in the third quarter a year ago. The allowance for credit losses represented 356.7% of nonperforming loans at September 30, 2024, compared to 330.8% three months earlier and 209.3% a year earlier. Nonperforming loans were $4.8 million at September 30, 2024, $5.1 million at June 30, 2024, and $7.8 million a year earlier.

    Net loan charge-offs totaled $17,000 in the third quarter of 2024, compared to net loan charge-offs of $2,000 in the preceding quarter and net loan charge-offs of $108,000 in the third quarter a year ago. The allowance for credit losses was $17.1 million, or 1.12% of total loans, at September 30, 2024, compared to $16.8 million, or 1.11% of total loans, at June 30, 2024, and $16.2 million, or 1.10% of total loans, a year ago.

    Capital Management

    The ratio of tangible common shareholders’ equity (shareholders’ equity, less goodwill and core deposit intangible) to tangible assets (total assets, less goodwill and core deposit intangible) was 6.56% at September 30, 2024, from 5.75% a year ago and 6.33% three months earlier. As of September 30, 2024, the Bank’s regulatory capital was in excess of all applicable regulatory requirements and is deemed well capitalized. The Bank’s Tier 1 capital to adjusted total average assets was 9.87% as of September 30, 2024.

    About the Company

    Eagle Bancorp Montana, Inc. is a bank holding company headquartered in Helena, Montana, and is the holding company of Opportunity Bank of Montana, a community bank established in 1922 that serves consumers and small businesses in Montana through 29 banking offices. Additional information is available on the Bank’s website at www.opportunitybank.com. The shares of Eagle Bancorp Montana, Inc. are traded on the NASDAQ Global Market under the symbol “EBMT.”

    Forward Looking Statements

    This release may contain certain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and may be identified by the use of such words as “believe,” “will” “expect,” “anticipate,” “should,” “planned,” “estimated,” and “potential.” These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to statements of our goals, intentions and expectations; statements regarding our business plans, prospects, mergers, growth and operating strategies; statements regarding the asset quality of our loan and investment portfolios; and estimates of our risks and future costs and benefits. These forward-looking statements are based on current beliefs and expectations of our management and are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control. In addition, these forward-looking statements are subject to assumptions with respect to future business strategies and decisions that are subject to change. These factors include, but are not limited to, changes in laws or government regulations or policies affecting financial institutions, including changes in regulatory fees and capital requirements; general economic conditions and political events, either nationally or in our market areas, that are worse than expected including the ability of the U.S. Congress to increase the U.S. statutory debt limit, as needed, as well as the impact of the 2024 U.S. presidential election; the emergence or continuation of widespread health emergencies or pandemics including the magnitude and duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, including but not limited to vaccine efficacy and immunization rates, new variants, steps taken by governmental and other authorities to contain, mitigate and combat the pandemic, adverse effects on our employees, customers and third-party service providers, the increase in cyberattacks in the current work-from-home environment, the ultimate extent of the impacts on our business, financial position, results of operations, liquidity and prospects, continued deterioration in general business and economic conditions could adversely affect our revenues and the values of our assets and liabilities, lead to a tightening of credit and increase stock price volatility, and potential impairment charges; the impact of volatility in the U.S. banking industry, including the associated impact of any regulatory changes or other mitigation efforts taken by governmental agencies in response thereto; the possibility that future credit losses may be higher than currently expected due to changes in economic assumptions, customer behavior, adverse developments with respect to U.S. economic conditions and other uncertainties, including the impact of supply chain disruptions, inflationary pressures and labor shortages on economic conditions and our business; an inability to access capital markets or maintain deposits or borrowing costs; competition among banks, financial holding companies and other traditional and non-traditional financial service providers; loan demand or residential and commercial real estate values in Montana; the concentration of our business in Montana; our ability to continue to increase and manage our commercial real estate, commercial business and agricultural loans; the costs and effects of legal, compliance and regulatory actions, changes and developments, including the initiation and resolution of legal proceedings (including any securities, bank operations, consumer or employee litigation); inflation and changes in the interest rate environment that reduce our margins or reduce the fair value of financial instruments; adverse changes in the securities markets that lead to impairment in the value of our investment securities and goodwill; other economic, governmental, competitive, regulatory and technological factors that may affect our operations; our ability to implement new technologies and maintain secure and reliable technology systems including those that involve the Bank’s third-party vendors and service providers; cyber incidents, or theft or loss of Company or customer data or money; our ability to appropriately address social, environmental, and sustainability concerns that may arise from our business activities; the effect of our recent or future acquisitions, including the failure to achieve expected revenue growth and/or expense savings, the failure to effectively integrate their operations, the outcome of any legal proceedings and the diversion of management time on issues related to the integration.

    Because of these and other uncertainties, our actual future results may be materially different from the results indicated by these forward-looking statements. All information set forth in this press release is current as of the date of this release and the company undertakes no duty or obligation to update this information.

    Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

    In addition to results presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles utilized in the United States, or GAAP, the Financial Ratios and Other Data contains non-GAAP financial measures. Non-GAAP financial measures include: 1) core efficiency ratio, 2) tangible book value per share and 3) tangible common equity to tangible assets. The Company uses these non-GAAP financial measures to provide meaningful supplemental information regarding the Company’s operational performance and performance trends, and to enhance investors’ overall understanding of such financial performance. In particular, the use of tangible book value per share and tangible common equity to tangible assets is prevalent among banking regulators, investors and analysts.

    The numerator for the core efficiency ratio is calculated by subtracting acquisition costs and intangible asset amortization from noninterest expense. Tangible assets and tangible common shareholders’ equity are calculated by excluding intangible assets from assets and shareholders’ equity, respectively. For these financial measures, our intangible assets consist of goodwill and core deposit intangible. Tangible book value per share is calculated by dividing tangible common shareholders’ equity by the number of common shares outstanding. We believe that this measure is consistent with the capital treatment by our bank regulatory agencies, which exclude intangible assets from the calculation of risk-based capital ratios and present this measure to facilitate the comparison of the quality and composition of our capital over time and in comparison, to our competitors.

    Non-GAAP financial measures have inherent limitations, are not required to be uniformly applied, and are not audited. Because non-GAAP financial measures are not standardized, it may not be possible to compare these financial measures with other companies’ non-GAAP financial measures having the same or similar names. Further, the non-GAAP financial measure of tangible book value per share should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for book value per share or total shareholders’ equity determined in accordance with GAAP, and may not be comparable to a similarly titled measure reported by other companies. Reconciliation of the GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures are presented below.

                   
    Balance Sheet              
    (Dollars in thousands, except per share data)       (Unaudited)  
                September 30, June 30, September 30,
                  2024     2024     2023  
                     
    Assets:              
      Cash and due from banks       $ 22,954   $ 22,361   $ 19,743  
      Interest bearing deposits in banks       19,035     1,401     1,040  
      Federal funds sold           200     –     –  
      Total cash and cash equivalents       42,189     23,762     20,783  
      Securities available-for-sale, at fair value       306,982     306,869     308,786  
      Federal Home Loan Bank (“FHLB”) stock       11,218     10,136     10,438  
      Federal Reserve Bank (“FRB”) stock       4,131     4,131     4,131  
      Mortgage loans held-for-sale, at fair value       13,429     10,518     17,880  
      Loans:              
      Real estate loans:            
      Residential 1-4 family         156,811     157,053     146,938  
      Residential 1-4 family construction       52,217     50,228     48,135  
      Commercial real estate         644,019     627,326     611,963  
      Commercial construction and development     125,323     137,427     151,614  
      Farmland           145,356     142,353     143,789  
      Other loans:              
      Home equity           93,646     93,213     83,221  
      Consumer           29,445     29,118     29,832  
      Commercial           143,190     143,641     129,952  
      Agricultural           144,645     137,134     130,329  
      Total loans           1,534,652     1,517,493     1,475,773  
      Allowance for credit losses         (17,130 )   (16,830 )   (16,230 )
      Net loans           1,517,522     1,500,663     1,459,543  
      Accrued interest and dividends receivable       14,844     13,195     13,657  
      Mortgage servicing rights, net         15,443     15,614     15,738  
      Assets held-for-sale, at cost         257     257     –  
      Premises and equipment, net         100,297     98,397     92,979  
      Cash surrender value of life insurance, net       52,852     48,529     47,647  
      Goodwill           34,740     34,740     34,740  
      Core deposit intangible, net         4,834     5,168     6,264  
      Other assets           26,375     26,976     30,478  
      Total assets         $ 2,145,113   $ 2,098,955   $ 2,063,064  
                     
    Liabilities:              
      Deposit accounts:              
      Noninterest bearing       $ 419,760   $ 400,113   $ 435,655  
      Interest bearing           1,230,752     1,218,752     1,179,823  
      Total deposits         1,650,512     1,618,865     1,615,478  
      Accrued expenses and other liabilities       38,593     35,804     31,597  
      FHLB advances and other borrowings       219,167     215,050     199,757  
      Other long-term debt, net         59,111     59,074     58,962  
      Total liabilities         1,967,383     1,928,793     1,905,794  
                     
    Shareholders’ Equity:              
      Preferred stock (par value $0.01 per share; 1,000,000 shares      
      authorized; no shares issued or outstanding)     –     –     –  
      Common stock (par value $0.01; 20,000,000 shares authorized;      
      8,507,429 shares issued; 8,016,784, 8,016,784 and 7,988,132      
      shares outstanding at September 30, 2024, June 30, 2024 and      
      September 30, 2023, respectively       85     85     85  
      Additional paid-in capital         109,040     108,962     109,422  
      Unallocated common stock held by Employee Stock Ownership Plan   (4,154 )   (4,297 )   (4,727 )
      Treasury stock, at cost (490,645, 490,645 and 519,297 shares at      
      September 30, 2024, June 30, 2024 and September 30, 2023, respectively)           (11,124 )   (11,124 )   (11,574 )
      Retained earnings           98,979     97,413     94,979  
      Accumulated other comprehensive loss, net of tax     (15,096 )   (20,877 )   (30,915 )
      Total shareholders’ equity       177,730     170,162     157,270  
      Total liabilities and shareholders’ equity   $ 2,145,113   $ 2,098,955   $ 2,063,064  
                     
    Income Statement      (Unaudited)   (Unaudited)
    (Dollars in thousands, except per share data)     Three Months Ended   Nine Months Ended
                  September 30, June 30, September 30,   September 30,
                    2024   2024   2023     2024   2023  
    Interest and dividend income:                
      Interest and fees on loans     $ 23,802 $ 22,782 $ 21,068   $ 68,526 $ 57,942  
      Securities available-for-sale       2,598   2,631   2,794     7,953   8,586  
      FRB and FHLB dividends       266   264   212     777   480  
      Other interest income       94   145   20     268   66  
        Total interest and dividend income       26,760   25,822   24,094     77,524   67,074  
    Interest expense:                  
      Interest expense on deposits       7,190   6,884   5,152     20,622   11,767  
      FHLB advances and other borrowings       3,084   2,625   2,672     8,206   5,993  
      Other long-term debt       684   681   683     2,048   2,035  
        Total interest expense       10,958   10,190   8,507     30,876   19,795  
    Net interest income         15,802   15,632   15,587     46,648   47,279  
    Provision for credit losses       277   412   588     554   1,186  
        Net interest income after provision for credit losses     15,525   15,220   14,999     46,094   46,093  
                             
    Noninterest income:                
      Service charges on deposit accounts       430   428   447     1,258   1,313  
      Mortgage banking, net       2,602   2,417   4,338     7,196   11,252  
      Interchange and ATM fees       662   640   643     1,865   1,861  
      Appreciation in cash surrender value of life insurance     1,038   320   382     1,646   1,165  
      Net loss on sale of available-for-sale securities       –   –   –     –   (222 )
      Other noninterest income       251   464   225     1,239   1,541  
        Total noninterest income       4,983   4,269   6,035     13,204   16,910  
                             
    Noninterest expense:                
      Salaries and employee benefits       9,894   10,273   10,837     29,885   31,614  
      Occupancy and equipment expense       2,134   2,104   1,956     6,337   6,100  
      Data processing       1,587   1,382   1,486     4,494   4,270  
      Advertising         277   316   340     846   930  
      Amortization         337   348   386     1,054   1,201  
      Loan costs         385   412   517     1,195   1,426  
      FDIC insurance premiums       295   284   301     878   862  
      Professional and examination fees       438   423   408     1,345   1,484  
      Other noninterest expense       1,923   1,765   1,644     5,576   5,311  
        Total noninterest expense       17,270   17,307   17,875     51,610   53,198  
                             
    Income before provision for income taxes       3,238   2,182   3,159     7,688   9,805  
    Provision for income taxes       529   444   524     1,343   1,913  
    Net income         $ 2,709 $ 1,738 $ 2,635   $ 6,345 $ 7,892  
                             
    Basic earnings per common share     $ 0.35 $ 0.22 $ 0.34   $ 0.81 $ 1.01  
    Diluted earnings per common share     $ 0.34 $ 0.22 $ 0.34   $ 0.81 $ 1.01  
                             
    Basic weighted average shares outstanding       7,836,921   7,830,925   7,784,279     7,830,947   7,787,987  
                             
    Diluted weighted average shares outstanding       7,860,138   7,845,272   7,791,966     7,848,196   7,792,593  
                             
    ADDITIONAL FINANCIAL INFORMATION   (Unaudited)  
    (Dollars in thousands, except per share data) Three or Nine Months Ended
          September 30, June 30, September 30,
            2024     2024     2023  
               
    Mortgage Banking Activity (For the quarter):      
      Net gain on sale of mortgage loans $ 1,691   $ 1,600   $ 3,591  
      Net change in fair value of loans held-for-sale and derivatives   159     12     (71 )
      Mortgage servicing income, net   752     805     818  
      Mortgage banking, net   $ 2,602   $ 2,417   $ 4,338  
               
    Mortgage Banking Activity (Year-to-date):      
      Net gain on sale of mortgage loans $ 4,705     $ 8,551  
      Net change in fair value of loans held-for-sale and derivatives   (2 )     234  
      Mortgage servicing income, net   2,493       2,467  
      Mortgage banking, net   $ 7,196     $ 11,252  
               
    Performance Ratios (For the quarter):      
      Return on average assets   0.51 %   0.33 %   0.51 %
      Return on average equity   6.56 %   4.30 %   6.63 %
      Yield on average interest earning assets   5.66 %   5.64 %   5.27 %
      Cost of funds     2.89 %   2.78 %   2.37 %
      Net interest margin   3.34 %   3.41 %   3.41 %
      Core efficiency ratio*   81.47 %   85.22 %   80.89 %
               
    Performance Ratios (Year-to-date):      
      Return on average assets   0.41 %     0.53 %
      Return on average equity   5.19 %     6.54 %
      Yield on average interest earning assets   5.59 %     5.07 %
      Cost of funds     2.78 %     1.94 %
      Net interest margin   3.36 %     3.57 %
      Core efficiency ratio*   84.47 %     81.01 %
               
    * The core efficiency ratio is a non-GAAP ratio that is calculated by dividing non-interest expense, exclusive of acquisition
    costs and intangible asset amortization, by the sum of net interest income and non-interest income.    
               
               
    ADDITIONAL FINANCIAL INFORMATION      
    (Dollars in thousands, except per share data)      
            (Unaudited)  
    Asset Quality Ratios and Data: As of or for the Three Months Ended
          September 30, June 30, September 30,
            2024     2024     2023  
               
      Nonaccrual loans   $ 3,859   $ 4,012   $ 7,753  
      Loans 90 days past due and still accruing   944     1,076     –  
      Total nonperforming loans     4,803     5,088     7,753  
      Other real estate owned and other repossessed assets   4     4     –  
      Total nonperforming assets   $ 4,807   $ 5,092   $ 7,753  
               
      Nonperforming loans / portfolio loans   0.31 %   0.34 %   0.53 %
      Nonperforming assets / assets   0.22 %   0.24 %   0.38 %
      Allowance for credit losses / portfolio loans   1.12 %   1.11 %   1.10 %
      Allowance for credit losses/ nonperforming loans   356.65 %   330.78 %   209.34 %
      Gross loan charge-offs for the quarter $ 22   $ 12   $ 122  
      Gross loan recoveries for the quarter $ 5   $ 10   $ 14  
      Net loan charge-offs for the quarter $ 17   $ 2   $ 108  
               
               
          September 30, June 30, September 30,
            2024     2024     2023  
    Capital Data (At quarter end):      
      Common shareholders’ equity (book value) per share $ 22.17   $ 21.23   $ 19.69  
      Tangible book value per share** $ 17.23   $ 16.25   $ 14.55  
      Shares outstanding   8,016,784     8,016,784     7,988,132  
      Tangible common equity to tangible assets***   6.56 %   6.33 %   5.75 %
               
    Other Information:        
      Average investment securities for the quarter $ 305,730   $ 306,207   $ 319,308  
      Average investment securities year-to-date $ 308,688   $ 310,168   $ 335,898  
      Average loans for the quarter **** $ 1,547,246   $ 1,513,313   $ 1,476,584  
      Average loans year-to-date **** $ 1,519,951   $ 1,506,303   $ 1,417,291  
      Average earning assets for the quarter $ 1,874,669   $ 1,837,418   $ 1,812,610  
      Average earning assets year-to-date $ 1,847,468   $ 1,833,867   $ 1,768,361  
      Average total assets for the quarter $ 2,116,839   $ 2,077,448   $ 2,052,443  
      Average total assets year-to-date $ 2,086,951   $ 2,072,013   $ 1,999,864  
      Average deposits for the quarter $ 1,622,254   $ 1,625,882   $ 1,602,770  
      Average deposits year-to-date $ 1,624,936   $ 1,625,826   $ 1,596,201  
      Average equity for the quarter $ 165,162   $ 161,533   $ 158,933  
      Average equity year-to-date $ 163,106   $ 162,084   $ 160,917  
               
    ** The tangible book value per share is a non-GAAP ratio that is calculated by dividing shareholders’ equity,  
    less goodwill and core deposit intangible, by common shares outstanding.      
    *** The tangible common equity to tangible assets is a non-GAAP ratio that is calculated by dividing shareholders’  
    equity, less goodwill and core deposit intangible, by total assets, less goodwill and core deposit intangible.  
    **** Includes loans held for sale      
           
    Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures              
                           
    Core Efficiency Ratio     (Unaudited)     (Unaudited)  
    (Dollars in thousands)   Three Months Ended   Nine Months Ended  
              September 30, June 30, September 30,   September 30,  
                2024     2024     2023       2024     2023    
    Calculation of Core Efficiency Ratio:              
      Noninterest expense $ 17,270   $ 17,307   $ 17,875     $ 51,610   $ 53,198    
      Intangible asset amortization   (337 )   (348 )   (386 )     (1,054 )   (1,201 )  
        Core efficiency ratio numerator   16,933     16,959     17,489       50,556     51,997    
                           
      Net interest income   15,802     15,632     15,587       46,648     47,279    
      Noninterest income   4,983     4,269     6,035       13,204     16,910    
        Core efficiency ratio denominator   20,785     19,901     21,622       59,852     64,189    
                           
      Core efficiency ratio (non-GAAP)   81.47 %   85.22 %   80.89 %     84.47 %   81.01 %  
                           
    Tangible Book Value and Tangible Assets   (Unaudited)
    (Dollars in thousands, except per share data)   September 30, June 30, September 30,
                  2024     2024     2023  
    Tangible Book Value:            
      Shareholders’ equity     $ 177,730   $ 170,162   $ 157,270  
      Goodwill and core deposit intangible, net     (39,574 )   (39,908 )   (41,004 )
        Tangible common shareholders’ equity (non-GAAP) $ 138,156   $ 130,254   $ 116,266  
                     
      Common shares outstanding at end of period   8,016,784     8,016,784     7,988,132  
                     
      Common shareholders’ equity (book value) per share (GAAP) $ 22.17   $ 21.23   $ 19.69  
                     
      Tangible common shareholders’ equity (tangible book value)      
        per share (non-GAAP)     $ 17.23   $ 16.25   $ 14.55  
                     
    Tangible Assets:            
      Total assets       $ 2,145,113   $ 2,098,955   $ 2,063,064  
      Goodwill and core deposit intangible, net     (39,574 )   (39,908 )   (41,004 )
        Tangible assets (non-GAAP)   $ 2,105,539   $ 2,059,047   $ 2,022,060  
                     
      Tangible common shareholders’ equity to tangible assets      
        (non-GAAP)         6.56 %   6.33 %   5.75 %
                     
    Contacts: Laura F. Clark, President and CEO
      (406) 457-4007
      Miranda J. Spaulding, SVP and CFO
      (406) 441-5010  

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI: MEF Releases 2025 NaaS Industry Blueprint to Accelerate Innovation Across Automated Ecosystem

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    DALLAS, Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) —  MEF, a global industry association of network, cloud, security, and technology providers accelerating enterprise digital transformation, today announced the availability of its 2025 NaaS Industry Blueprint, outlining the next phase in the evolution of Network-as-a-Service.

    “Our 2025 NaaS Industry Blueprint unites industry stakeholders around a shared vision for NaaS and serves as a comprehensive guide for service providers to develop, deliver, and manage NaaS offerings across a standards-based automated ecosystem,” said blueprint author Stan Hubbard, Principal Analyst, MEF. “In the coming months, our focus is on deepening collaboration across the ecosystem to unlock the market’s full potential and meet the surging enterprise demand for high-performance, AI-driven, and cloud-optimized networks.”

    Enterprises are increasingly turning to NaaS, which is uniquely positioned to meet top priorities for digital transformation, including enhanced cybersecurity, cloud migration, and support for AI and GenAI workloads. MEF’s 2025 NaaS Industry Blueprint highlights how the rapid rise of GenAI has unlocked new NaaS-related revenue opportunities for service providers, particularly in multi-cloud environments.

    The 2025 NaaS Industry Blueprint serves as a foundational resource for service providers, cloud providers, technology suppliers, and other ecosystem participants, emphasizing the need for collaboration across multiple fronts to maximize market opportunities. The blueprint identifies key areas for alignment and collaboration, providing progress updates to guide companies in these efforts, including:

    • Unified Definition of NaaS: Establishes a clear definition of NaaS integrating on-demand connectivity, application assurance, cybersecurity, and multi-cloud networking within an automated ecosystem.
    • Key NaaS Features: Identifies 36 key features, including 20 essential customer-facing features highlighted in MEF’s NaaS Customer Experience white paper.
    • NaaS Use Cases: Explores customer requirements and service provider solutions for four core NaaS use cases—on-demand connectivity, SD-WAN, Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), and multi-cloud connectivity.
    • NaaS Automated Ecosystem: Reports progress on the NaaS automated ecosystem built on standardized services and Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) APIs that automate business and operational functions between ecosystem participants.

    The blueprint also highlights MEF’s ongoing efforts to extend NaaS capabilities to enterprise customers, enabling organizations to leverage standardized MEF LSO APIs for greater control, flexibility, and visibility over their network environments. MEF’s recently released NaaS Customer Experience white paper identifies what enterprises can expect from NaaS offerings, including cloud-like scalability, dynamic connectivity, real-time performance insights, and enhanced cybersecurity.

    MEF’s test and certification programs play a pivotal role in accelerating NaaS adoption by building trust and ensuring interoperability across the ecosystem. Certification programs validate that service and technology providers meet the stringent requirements for delivering automation-ready NaaS services. As of October 2024, 15 technology and service providers have achieved MEF 3.0 certification for SASE and SD-WAN. Growing industry commitment to certified and standardized services provides enterprises and service providers with the confidence to invest in and deploy NaaS solutions at scale.

    The NaaS Industry Blueprint is available for download at MEF.net/NaaS. For more information about MEF standards, automation APIs, and certifications, visit MEF.net.

    About MEF
    MEF is a global consortium of service, cloud, cybersecurity, and technology providers collaborating to accelerate enterprise digital transformation. It delivers standards-based frameworks, services, technologies, APIs, and certification programs to enable Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) across an automated ecosystem. MEF is the defining authority for certified Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) business and operational APIs and Carrier Ethernet, SASE, SD-WAN, Zero Trust, and Security Service Edge (SSE) technologies and services. MEF’s Global NaaS Event (GNE) convenes industry leaders building and delivering the next generation of NaaS solutions. For more information about MEF, visit MEF.net and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter. 

    Media Contact:
    Melissa Power
    MEF
    pr@mef.net

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Economics: Andrew Bailey: Michael D Gill Memorial Society Lecture

    Source: Bank for International Settlements

    Quite simply, I wish I was not giving this lecture today. Or, perhaps better, I wish I was giving it with Mike Gill here to participate. But, only one of those is possible due to his tragic and senseless killing. I am sure I am not alone in thinking that when these events happen to people we do not know, we find a sort of anesthetised isolation by resorting to commenting on the public policy implications in a rather dehumanised way. But when it happens to someone we knew, hugely liked and respected, who was without question a good person, then it is almost natural to be lost for words. It has taken me a long time to compose thoughts on someone to and about whom I could say so much in life.

    There is an old saying that someone is a pillar of society. They are the people who support and hold society together. Well, Mike was without question a pillar of society. He was generous, kind, thoughtful and very supportive. Kristina, Sean, Brian, and Annika, as you know even better than us, he was an outstanding person.

    But Mike was not a pillar of society in the sense of that term of someone who was stuck in the past, holding together a world that was lost. He was a moderniser, and that was why it was so appropriate that he served at the CFTC, which has its history but also is at one of the cutting edges of finance. Mike loved that. He talked at length about visiting farms with Chris and about the technology changing farms and agricultural markets. But he was also an enthusiast to find an appropriate treatment of cryptocurrency in derivatives markets.

    The second thing about Mike and his work here at the CFTC that naturally brought us together was that he was a passionate internationalist. And he always seemed happy to visit London, and it was always good to see him there. Our international travel went further. There is a memorable, for me certainly, picture of the two of us on a boat trip in Sydney Harbour in 2019.

    It wasn’t just the travel. Mike was, like Chris, an internationalist through and through. I spent time with Mike after the UK’s Brexit Referendum in 2016. I am strictly neutral on Brexit as a public official. I knew then that our job was to work out how to implement something that, let’s be honest, had not been planned. In the area of financial services, clearing was going to be probably the hardest area for us, because – and I will come back to this point – it is inherently international in many parts, and particularly the parts we do in London. I knew immediately after the Referendum that it was critical for the UK not to become isolated and certainly not isolationist. That would be the road to a very bad outcome for the City of London. We needed friends, both in deeds and words, those who would be prepared to stand by us, and put up with uncertainty while we worked out the best course. Chris, you and Mike were those people – friends when we were in some need.

    Now, it is the case that, as a internationalist, Mike arrived in the world of clearing at the right time. It is a fairly esoteric activity, always important, but also often in the background. We quite like it to be humming away safely in the background. But the Global Financial crisis had emphasised that we had undervalued its importance, that the world would have been safer if we had put It more into the centre of the financial system.

    But, to do that it must be done safely and soundly. Unsafe clearing would be worse than no clearing, it would amount to concentrating the risk in one unsafe house.

    And so, if we are asked to list the very big financial system changes post financial crisis, we should naturally start by saying that we have put clearing at the heart of the system. Central Counterparties (CCPs) are a key to mitigating counterparty credit risk, which has become even more relevant following the crisis and, in so doing, bring significant financial stability benefits. The experience of the collapse of Lehman Brothers demonstrated that CCPs should be able to dampen the shock of a major counterparty credit failure. One of my abiding memories of the Lehman weekend was the attempt to organise an ad-hoc trade position compression exercise, to net down the positions. It wasn’t possible, and the hard lesson was that only permanent institutional structures with clearing houses at their heart can achieve the ends we desired.

    But, of course, we know that CCPs, can pose significant risks to the stability of the financial system if they are not properly managed. A consequence of central clearing is that CCPs themselves become a financial network which can bring about the contagion of financial instability if they are not robustly established and operated. In line with G20 commitments following the Financial Crisis, the introduction of mandatory clearing for various classes of over-the-counter derivatives has driven an increase in the systemic importance of CCPs.

    In the banking world, that tendency for banks to grow and become more globally systemic led to hostility to allowing very large banks which could be too big to fail. Clearing is different. Its not just that clearing didn’t cause the crisis, though just to be clear, it didn’t. Rather, its more than that. Up to some point, and that point can naturally be large, there are benefits of scale and scope in clearing. Yes, there is contagion risk if a CCP fails, and especially where it is large in its market, but there are real benefits of scope and scale.

    And, this naturally leads to the international dimension that Mike so much emphasised. The global nature of many financial markets means that clearing is naturally a
    cross-border activity. Cross-border clearing also brings significant benefits. A single CCP operating across multiple jurisdictions and currencies can provide efficiencies and reduce risk through multilateral settling of exposures across counterparties in different jurisdictions.

    This puts an obligation on us as regulators of clearing houses. We have a duty to enable the safe operation of the global financial system. Public authorities have risen to this duty, supervising standards on CCPs have been strengthened and new international standards have driven the establishment of credible CCP resolution regimes. We also have a deep sense of responsibility for the impact of our actions on other countries. And, we take this very seriously, as we must. In the UK, as the regulator we are required in any exercise of our rule-making power to consider the effects of these rules on the financial stability of any country where one of our clearing houses provides services, and we must act in a way that does not favour one jurisdiction over another.

    This is of course all common sense. We all recognise that the interconnectedness of global markets means that any shocks in one part of the world can quickly reverberate and cause stress elsewhere. But common sense though it is, I can tell you that it’s a lot easier to put into practice when you are working with someone like Mike Gill, who wants to get things done and is at heart an internationalist.

    And, so it should be no surprise that during the period Mike was here at the CFTC, things did get done, and they continue to get done building on his legacy.

    There is another feature of clearing that is distinctive. As I said earlier, by its very nature it concentrates the risks associated with the trades being cleared. That’s how and why CCPs are such crucial nodes in the financial system. But it also means that if a CCP doesn’t manage its risk well, the concentration magnifies the impact of the problem. Moreover, CCPs tend to be highly interconnected because the instruments they clear are likewise interconnected – think about the different ways to trade interest rate risk. A small number of CCPs provide most of the capacity in over the counter derivatives clearing. And, a small number of clearing members provide the majority of clearing services to clients at all of these big CCPs. These firms are also providing key services to the CCPs, such as settlement, custody and liquidity backstops.

    We can take a few points from this. Clearing is quite complicated and technical as an activity. I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest that here in Washington, conversations in bars are not of the sort: “tell me how does margining in a clearing house work”. Its notoriously a dry subject, but important, hugely so. But therein lies a risk – even at international meetings there can seem to be other things to talk about, happily so, and that can lead to problems of neglect.

    Except, onto the scene came Mike Gill and Chris Giancarlo. The enthusiasts had arrived. Suddenly, it seemed a pleasure to talk about clearing. The fun kids talked about clearing. The serious point is that supervising big CCPs requires deep cooperation between authorities across multiple jurisdictions. It requires cooperation not fragmentation. We knew how to do that, but it always seemed harder to put in practice than it should have done. We don’t like economic fragmentation in the world, rightly so, but somehow arguments are made that its ok to do so for clearing. No it isn’t as a matter of fact, because such a view defies the logic of how financial markets work. Supervising and regulatory cooperation is a key part of the right approach.

    I want to finish by looking forwards. I think that is what Mike would want, because it was very much as I remember him. There was always something new and interesting, whether it was drones overseeing crop production or crypto assets.

    The importance and role of clearing continues to grow rapidly. A few facts help to illustrate the importance of clearing. I will focus on UK-US clearing facts. The notional amount of OTC derivatives cleared by UK CCPs with US counterparties continues to be greater than that cleared with any other jurisdiction. Across the three UK CCPs, 38% of margin is derived from US clearing members, and volumes have been larger this year than last, which was also up on previous years.

    Overall, one thing that lies behind this growth is a rise in non-bank financial intermediation versus bank intermediation. We should not be surprised at this. But let me go back to 2008 and the Lehman weekend for a moment. The attempt to put in place an ad-hoc trade compression process – to net down exposures – reflected in the main banks having – sloppily – built up very large derivative books, and not managed them effectively. I remember several CEOs told me at the time that it just had not occurred to them that they needed to manage these books efficiently.

    Indeed, it was very clear that for quite a few, there was very little awareness of the problem that was building up. It was too easy to pile trade upon trade with little regard for the need to risk manage these books throughly.

    And then the music stopped, and suddenly what had been out of sight and out of mind in the good times became a problem. Outsized books had to be managed down by banks. Today that legacy is behind us. But the scale of derivative activity has nonetheless grown much further. That growth has provided important hedging benefits, and it has enabled much larger position limits to exist, concentrated more in the non-bank sector, but inevitably with links into the banking system. The so-called basis trade is a good example of this.

    These developments leave us with major puzzles. Is there a scale of activity beyond which stress sets in when it has to be unwound quite suddenly? What would be the effects of that stress? And how do we model such a fluid landscape, where stress could emerge in several places at once? Better tools of diagnosis are important here.

    At the Bank of England we have designed and run something we call the System Wide Exploratory Scenario, which seeks to synthesise the effects of some severe but plausible shocks passing through the financial system. Over 50 firms have participated, as have the clearing houses that support the activity. This is not a stress test in the now quite traditional individual bank by bank sense. It is a market-wide test designed to simulate shocks – it’s a flow test, designed to find obstructions and concentrations of risks and correlated positions that might otherwise be opaque. It is I think an important step forward in testing behavioural reactions to stress including how risks might cascade across markets. And, it will give us a better answer in terms of the effectiveness of CCPs in managing market-wide risks. The results should be published by the end of the year. It’s the sort of new thing that I think Mike would have appreciated, and been enthusiastic about.

    The Bank of England and the CFTC have a longstanding relationship of cooperation on CCPs. Mike added his special qualities to that relationship. Its our duty to carry his work forward, but even more so to do it in his spirit, the one we enjoyed and miss so much.

    Thank you.

    I would like to thank Sarah Breeden, Karen Jude, Harsh Mehta, Ruth Smith, Sam Woods, Shane Scott, Sasha Mills, Deborah Potts, Thomas Ferry, Konstantina Drakouli, Marc Ledroux, Barry King and Priya Mistry for their help in the preparation of these remarks.

    MIL OSI Economics –

  • MIL-OSI: MEF’s Enterprise Leadership Council Triples in Size, Driving Key Initiatives in Service Automation, Cybersecurity, and AI-Ops

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    DALLAS, Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — MEF, a global industry association of network, cloud, security, and technology providers accelerating enterprise digital transformation, today announced the expansion of its Enterprise Leadership Council (ELC) from four founding members to 14 leaders representing a diverse range of industries. Formed one year ago, the ELC now includes executives from sectors such as entertainment, financial services, banking, retail, technology, healthcare, and consulting.

    This expansion highlights MEF’s commitment to providing real value to enterprises exploring Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) opportunities, reinforcing its role as an independent platform where enterprises, service providers, cloud, technology companies, and other key stakeholders, collaborate on initiatives shaping the future of the digital ecosystem. With expanded enterprise participation, the organization is poised to drive impactful projects that address cloud, network, and security challenges head-on, propelling innovation across industries.

    The ELC’s growth also reflects the increasing importance of enterprise perspectives in shaping MEF’s NaaS-related work. By tripling its membership in just one year, the council now offers a broader and more comprehensive view of enterprise needs across various sectors and has begun shaping strategic initiatives in areas such as service automation, cybersecurity services, compliance, and AI-Ops. 

    The ELC includes:

    • Francisco Artes, Vice President, Product & Enterprise Security, Roku
    • Nabil Bitar, Chief Technology Officer & Head of Network Architecture, Bloomberg LP
    • Maxime Bruynbroeck, Head of Network, Decathlon
    • Chris Carmody, Chief Technology Officer & Senior Vice President, Information Technology Division, UPMC
    • Daniel Foo, Head of Grabber Technology Solutions (GTS), Grab
    • Michael Jenkins, Strategic Negotiator, Google Enterprise Network
    • Amin Jerraya, Senior Vice President, Head of IT Digital Engagement and Infrastructure, Siemens Healthineers
    • Mark Looker, Managing Director and Head of Voice & Data Network Service, Morgan Stanley
    • Raleigh Mann, Senior Vice President of Technology, Williams-Sonoma, Inc.
    • Amo Mann, Chief Architect for Cloud and Network, Accenture
    • Chema San José, Head of Data & AI Architecture – CTO Global, Santander Digital Services
    • Neal Secher, Vice President, Head of Network Services, TD Bank
    • Jonathan Sheldrake, Vice President of IT – Infrastructure & Services, Burberry
    • Alejandro Tozer, Independent

    “The expansion of the Enterprise Leadership Council marks a pivotal moment in MEF’s evolution,” said Sunil Khandekar, Chief Enterprise Development Officer, MEF. “By amplifying the enterprise voice, we’re not only responding to current industry needs, but anticipating future ones. The ELC’s diverse expertise is already shaping MEF’s NaaS initiatives, which will drive real solutions for today’s challenges and lay the foundation for tomorrow’s innovations. This level of collaboration sets a new standard for how industry associations can lead meaningful progress.”

    A first initiative for the ELC is MEF’s recently launched Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) Circuit Impairment & Maintenance (CIM) Service API, designed to enable service providers to automate and standardize how network circuit impairments and scheduled maintenance are communicated to enterprises. The CIM Service API will be showcased during a live demonstration at MEF’s Global NaaS Event (GNE) this week in Dallas, highlighting how enterprises can collaborate with service providers to proactively identify and address impairments and streamline network maintenance.

    As ELC-led initiatives continue to advance, MEF is attracting more enterprises eager to collaborate with technology, cloud, and service providers on MEF’s independent platform. Together, they contribute to and benefit from solutions that address critical needs in cloud, network, and cybersecurity infrastructure, accelerating digital transformation across sectors.

    Learn More
    Enterprises interested in joining MEF and contributing to projects that directly address their needs are encouraged to visit www.mef.net for more information on membership and engagement opportunities.

    About MEF
    MEF is a global consortium of service, cloud, cybersecurity, and technology providers collaborating to accelerate enterprise digital transformation. It delivers standards-based frameworks, services, technologies, APIs, and certification programs to enable Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) across an automated ecosystem. MEF is the defining authority for certified Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO) business and operational APIs and Carrier Ethernet, SASE, SD-WAN, Zero Trust, and Security Service Edge (SSE) technologies and services. MEF’s Global NaaS Event (GNE) convenes industry leaders building and delivering the next generation of NaaS solutions. For more information about MEF, visit MEF.net and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

    Media Contact:
    Melissa Power
    MEF
    pr@mef.net

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Security: Fredericton — The New Brunswick RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation Unit

    Source: Royal Canadian Mounted Police

    The mandate for the New Brunswick RCMP’s Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) Unit is to locate, assist, and support child victims of online sexual abuse, and identify those who are criminally responsible. The unit includes 11 investigators, including one each from Saint John Police Force and Kennebecasis Regional Police Force, one analyst, and one support staff. ICE has been operational since 2007.

    Between 2015 and 2023, there was a dramatic increase of reported child-related sexual exploitation files, including 568 new investigations in 2023 compared to 132 in 2015, an increase of 330% year over year. In 2023, as part of the provincial budget announcement, new positions and resources were allocated to the New Brunswick RCMP, which included funding for additional positions within the ICE Unit.

    With youth relying more and more on social media for socializing and entertainment, there are more ways for criminals to target children for the purpose of sexual exploitation and share explicit content involving children.

    “This increase in positions has proven to be very positive for us, and for New Brunswickers,” says Cpl. Hans Ouellette of the New Brunswick RCMP. “With these incremental positions and support, we have more resources available to pursue those who are trying to harm our youth.”

    Since 2021, the New Brunswick RCMP’s ICE Unit has executed 73 search warrants, resulting in 52 arrests and 103 charges laid. There is an average of over 70 reports of sextortion per week in Canada.

    “It is important for parents and guardians to speak with their children about how to stay safe when using the internet,” continues Cpl. Ouellette. “We understand that it may be difficult for youth to talk about these types of incidents, but it is vital to notify police as soon as possible if you have been a victim of online extortion or online sexual abuse of any kind.”

    For more information on how to protect yourself and your children online, please visit the following links:

    • RCMP Internet Safety
    • Cybertip.ca
    • Protectkidsonline.ca
    • Needhelpnow.ca
    • Dontgetsextorted.ca

    MIL Security OSI –

  • MIL-OSI: Celona Aerloc Brings Private 5G Zero Trust to OT Networks for Industrial IoT

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    CAMPBELL, Calif., Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Celona, a pioneer in private 5G networks, today announced Aerloc, a new suite of security capabilities that provide the next generation of private 5G wireless network security for Industry 4.0. Designed to address the unique challenges of securing increasingly digitized industrial IT and OT systems, Aerloc provides enhanced security and reliable connectivity without sacrificing agility. New capabilities include extended SIM-based authentication for unified zero trust enforcement, dynamic and distributed policy enforcement, and air-gapping between IT and OT traffic running on a common private 5G network, enabled by Celona MicroSlicing ™.

    Aerloc addresses several key concerns in Industrial IoT (IIoT). Traditional IT zero trust architectures often fail in industrial settings due to the need to keep data on-premises for low latency response, the thousands of IoT devices requiring agentless authentication and the division between IT and OT networks. Celona tackles these challenges by unifying IT, OT and private 5G into a seamless solution. This convergence enables organizations to securely capture real-time data from IIoT devices so that operational and security data can be immediately analyzed and acted on, including the mitigation of cybersecurity threats.

    Celona today also announced the expansion of its global channel program, now the Celona Frequency Partner Program, along with a global partnership agreement with TD SYNNEX to enable resellers and managed service providers to securely deliver private 5G services. For more information, see the announcement here. Celona Aerloc delivers the following:

    • SIM-based Authentication with Unified Zero Trust Enforcement for IT and OT devices eliminates the need for device-side software or agents. Celona’s open API approach provides native integration with best-in-class security services, such as firewalls, network access control (NAC) systems, and SD-WAN solutions, and is agnostic to their deployment – whether in the cloud, on-premises or in a hybrid setup. Celona Aerloc integrates with other leading enterprise security solutions, including Palo Alto Networks Cortex XSOAR and Next Generation Firewall (NGFW), Cisco ISE, and Aruba ClearPass. Celona continues to integrate with other top-tier security vendors through its open API framework to meet evolving enterprise needs.
    • Dynamic and Distributed Policy Enforcement to integrate with posture assessment tools, IoT security solutions, and security orchestration automation platforms. Aerloc provides a collaborative security architecture enabling localized and responsive security policy enforcement at a granular level—down to the individual device or user – and at the very edge of the network to significantly reduce the attack surface.
    • Air Gap Between IT and OT Traffic using Celona MicroSlicing technology. IT and OT traffic can be securely segmented both physically and logically over the air, on the LAN and within the shared 5G LAN network. This unique intent-based segmentation of IT and OT traffic ensures the separation of critical operational data from general enterprise traffic to maintain security and performance integrity across both environments.

    “Operational technology environments are challenging to secure from a connectivity perspective given the use of industrial sensors and IoT devices that are more easily compromised. 5G cellular technology provides additional encryption over 4G LTE and Wi-Fi standards, but more is needed given the growing sophistication of bad actors,” said Will Townsend, Principal Analyst, Networking & Security, Moor Insights & Strategy. “Celona Aerloc aims to address these challenges and accelerate the adoption of private 5G within the enterprise with a purpose-built, easy-to-manage, zero-trust security architecture that blends support for both IT and OT network deployments.”

    “A secure, reliable, and cost-effective network is essential to our operations in industrial environments like our refineries,” said Stefan Garrard, Principal Enterprise Technology Engineer at bp. “The new Celona security features further strengthen the robust connectivity we need to address these challenges. With the ability to securely leverage the same private 5G infrastructure for both IT and OT, we are confident that this Celona enhancement will strengthen our operational integrity and drive innovation, ensuring we remain at the forefront of safe and efficient energy production.”

    “Cybersecurity is one of our strongest practices, and we work with enterprise teams every day to develop and deploy bulletproof cybersecurity strategies,” said Jeremy Nelson, North American CISO, Insight. “With Aerloc, Celona is filling a critical gap between the IT and OT networks that has become more glaring as industrial organizations roll out their digital transformation programs, expanding the potential threat landscape. Celona brings us one step ahead of the game, allowing us to offer our customers an advanced private 5G solution that extends zero trust to where it’s needed most.”

    “Celona Aerloc represents a significant milestone in how industrial networks are secured,” said Rajeev Shah, CEO and Co-Founder of Celona. “By seamlessly integrating zero trust principles with our enterprise 5G LAN architecture, we empower organizations to confidently migrate mission-critical OT operations to private 5G while maintaining ironclad security and granular control. Aerloc eliminates the traditional trade-off between operational agility and cybersecurity, paving the way for true IT/OT convergence and all the benefits it offers.”

    Celona Aerloc is now available as part of the Celona 5G LAN solution. For more information, visit www.celona.io/aerloc.

    About Celona
    Based in Silicon Valley, Celona is a pioneer and leading innovator of enterprise private wireless solutions. The company developed the industry’s first 5G LAN system, a turnkey private 5G solution that enables enterprises to address their growing needs for secure and reliable wireless connectivity for critical business applications. Celona 5G LAN has been deployed by a wide range of global customers across industries. To date, the company has raised over $135 million in venture funding from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, NTT Ventures, Cervin Ventures, DigitalBridge and Qualcomm Ventures. For more information, please visit celona.io.

    Media contact:
    Janet Brumfield
    Mindshare PR for Celona
    janet@mindsharepr.com
    614-582-9636

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0cc48219-38ea-4247-9622-c7e542d9fee0

    The MIL Network –

  • MIL-OSI Banking: Apple’s new Mac mini is more mighty, more mini, and built for Apple Intelligence

    Source: Apple

    Headline: Apple’s new Mac mini is more mighty, more mini, and built for Apple Intelligence

    October 29, 2024

    PRESS RELEASE

    Apple’s all-new Mac mini is more mighty, more mini, and built for Apple Intelligence

    The compact, do-it-all desktop now features the power of M4 and M4 Pro, and marks an important environmental milestone as the first carbon neutral Mac

    CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today unveiled the all-new Mac mini powered by the M4 and new M4 Pro chips, and redesigned around Apple silicon to pack an incredible amount of performance into an even smaller form of just 5 by 5 inches. With M4, Mac mini delivers up to 1.8x faster CPU performance and 2.2x faster GPU performance over the M1 model.1 With M4 Pro, it takes the advanced technologies in M4 and scales them up to tackle even more demanding workloads. For more convenient connectivity, it features front and back ports, and for the first time includes Thunderbolt 5 for faster data transfer speeds on the M4 Pro model. The new Mac mini is also built for Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system that transforms how users work, communicate, and express themselves while protecting their privacy. And marking an important environmental milestone, Mac mini is Apple’s first carbon neutral Mac with an over 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions across its materials, manufacturing, transportation, and customer use.2 Starting at just $599 with 16GB of memory, the new Mac mini is available to pre-order today, with availability beginning November 8.

    “The new Mac mini delivers gigantic performance in an unbelievably small design thanks to the power efficiency of Apple silicon and an innovative new thermal architecture,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Engineering. “Combined with the performance of M4 and the new M4 Pro chip, enhanced connectivity on both the front and back, and the arrival of Apple Intelligence, Mac mini is more capable and versatile than ever, and there is nothing else like it.”

    Small, but Fierce

    The new Mac mini footprint is less than half the size of the previous design at just 5 by 5 inches, so it takes up much less space on a desk. The super-compact system is enabled by the incredible power efficiency of Apple silicon and an innovative thermal architecture, which guides air to different levels of the system, while all venting is done through the foot.

    When compared to the best-selling PC desktop in its price range, Mac mini is up to 6x faster at one-twentieth the size.1 For a wide range of users, from students to aspiring creatives and small business owners, the Mac mini with M4 is a tiny powerhouse. Mac mini with M4 features a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, and now starts with 16GB of unified memory. Users will feel the performance of M4 in everything they do, from multitasking across everyday productivity apps to creative projects like video editing, music production, or writing and compiling code.

    When compared to the Mac mini with Intel Core i7, Mac mini with M4:

    • Applies up to 2.8x more audio effect plugins in a Logic Pro project.1
    • Delivers up to 13.3x faster gaming performance in World of Warcraft: The War Within.1
    • Enhances photos with up to 33x faster image upscaling performance in Photomator.3

    When compared to the Mac mini with M1, Mac mini with M4:

    • Performs spreadsheet calculations up to 1.7x faster in Microsoft Excel.1
    • Transcribes with on-device AI speech-to-text up to 2x faster in MacWhisper.1
    • Merges panoramic images up to 4.9x faster in Adobe Lightroom Classic.4

    Introducing M4 Pro for Pro-Level Performance 

    For users who want pro-level performance, Mac mini with M4 Pro features the world’s fastest CPU core5 with lightning-fast single-threaded performance. With up to 14 cores, including 10 performance cores and four efficiency cores, M4 Pro also provides phenomenal multithreaded performance. With up to 20 cores, the M4 Pro GPU is up to twice as powerful as the GPU in M4, and both chips bring hardware-accelerated ray tracing to the Mac mini for the first time. The Neural Engine in M4 Pro is also over 3x faster than in Mac mini with M1, so on-device Apple Intelligence models run at blazing speed. M4 Pro supports up to 64GB of unified memory and 273GB/s of memory bandwidth — twice as much bandwidth as any AI PC chip — for accelerating AI workloads. And M4 Pro supports Thunderbolt 5, which delivers up to 120 Gb/s data transfer speeds on Mac mini, and more than doubles the throughput of Thunderbolt 4.

    When compared to the Mac mini with Intel Core i7, Mac mini with M4 Pro:

    • Performs spreadsheet calculations up to 4x faster in Microsoft Excel.1
    • Executes scene-edit detection up to 9.4x faster in Adobe Premiere Pro.3
    • Transcribes with on-device AI speech-to-text up to 20x faster in MacWhisper.1
    • Processes basecalling for DNA sequencing in Oxford Nanopore MinKNOW up to 26x faster.1

    When compared to the Mac mini with M2 Pro, Mac mini with M4 Pro:

    • Applies up to 1.8x more audio effect plugins in a Logic Pro project.1
    • Renders motion graphics to RAM up to 2x faster in Motion.6
    • Completes 3D renders up to 2.9x faster in Blender.6

    Upgraded Connectivity and Display Support 

    The new Mac mini features a wide array of ports to drive any setup. It includes front-facing ports for more convenient access, including two USB-C ports that support USB 3, and an audio jack with support for high-impedance headphones. On the back, Mac mini with M4 includes three Thunderbolt 4 ports, while Mac mini with M4 Pro features three Thunderbolt 5 ports. Mac mini comes standard with Gigabit Ethernet, configurable up to 10Gb Ethernet for faster networking speeds, and an HDMI port for easy connection to a TV or HDMI display without an adapter. With M4, Mac mini can support up to two 6K displays and up to one 5K display, and with M4 Pro, it can support up to three 6K displays at 60Hz for a total of over 60 million pixels.

    A New Era with Apple Intelligence on the Mac

    Apple Intelligence ushers in a new era for the Mac, bringing personal intelligence to the personal computer. Combining powerful generative models with industry-first privacy protections, Apple Intelligence harnesses the power of Apple silicon and the Neural Engine to unlock new ways for users to work, communicate, and express themselves on Mac. It is available in U.S. English with macOS Sequoia 15.1. With systemwide Writing Tools, users can refine their words by rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text nearly everywhere they write. With the newly redesigned Siri, users can move fluidly between spoken and typed requests to accelerate tasks throughout their day, and Siri can answer thousands of questions about Mac and other Apple products. New Apple Intelligence features will be available in December, with additional capabilities rolling out in the coming months. Image Playground gives users a new way to create fun original images, and Genmoji allows them to create custom emoji in seconds. Siri will become even more capable, with the ability to take actions across the system and draw on a user’s personal context to deliver intelligence that is tailored to them. In December, ChatGPT will be integrated into Siri and Writing Tools, allowing users to access its expertise without needing to jump between tools.

    Apple Intelligence does all this while protecting users’ privacy at every step. At its core is on-device processing, and for more complex tasks, Private Cloud Compute gives users access to Apple’s even larger, server-based models and offers groundbreaking protections for personal information. In addition, users can access ChatGPT for free without creating an account, and privacy protections are built in — their IP addresses are obscured and OpenAI won’t store requests. For those who choose to connect their account, OpenAI’s data-use policies apply.

    The First Carbon Neutral Mac 

    The new Mac mini is Apple’s first carbon neutral Mac, marking a significant milestone toward Apple 2030, the company’s goal to be carbon neutral across the entire carbon footprint by the end of this decade.

    Mac mini is made with over 50 percent recycled content overall, including 100 percent recycled aluminum in the enclosure, 100 percent recycled gold plating in all Apple-designed printed circuit boards, and 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets. The electricity used to manufacture Mac mini is sourced from 100 percent renewable electricity. And, to address 100 percent of the electricity customers use to power Mac mini, Apple has invested in clean energy projects around the world. Apple has also prioritized lower-carbon modes of shipping, like ocean freight, to further reduce emissions from transportation. Together, these actions have reduced the carbon footprint of Mac mini by over 80 percent.2 For the small amount of remaining emissions, Apple applies high-quality carbon credits from nature-based projects, like those generated by its innovative Restore Fund.

    In another first for Mac mini, the packaging is now entirely fiber-based, bringing Apple closer to its goal to remove plastic from its packaging by 2025.

    An Unrivaled Experience with macOS Sequoia

    macOS Sequoia completes the new Mac mini experience with a host of exciting features, including iPhone Mirroring, allowing users to wirelessly interact with their iPhone, its apps, and notifications directly from their Mac.7 Safari, the world’s fastest browser,8 now offers the Highlights feature, which quickly pulls up relevant information from a site; a smarter, redesigned Reader with a table of contents and high-level summary; and a new Video Viewer to watch videos without distractions. With Distraction Control, users can hide items on a webpage that they may find disruptive to their browsing. Gaming gets even more immersive with features like Personalized Spatial Audio and improvements to Game Mode, along with a breadth of exciting titles, including the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Easier window tiling means users can stay organized with a window layout that works best for them. The all-new Passwords app gives convenient access to passwords, passkeys, and other credentials — all stored in one place. And users can apply new, beautiful built-in backgrounds for video calls, which include a variety of color gradients and system wallpapers, or upload their own photos.

    Pricing and Availability

    • Customers can pre-order the new Mac mini with M4 and M4 Pro starting today, Tuesday, October 29, on apple.com/store and in the Apple Store app in 28 countries and regions, including the U.S. It will start arriving to customers, and in Apple Store locations and Apple Authorized Resellers, beginning Friday, November 8.
    • Mac mini with M4 starts at $599 (U.S.) and $499 (U.S.) for education. Additional technical specifications are available at apple.com/mac-mini.
    • Mac mini with M4 Pro starts at $1,399 (U.S.) and $1,299 (U.S.) for education. Additional technical specifications are available at apple.com/mac-mini.
    • New accessories with USB-C — including Magic Keyboard ($99 U.S.), Magic Keyboard with Touch ID ($149 U.S.), Magic Keyboard with Touch ID and Numeric Keypad ($179 U.S.), Magic Trackpad ($129 U.S.), Magic Mouse ($79 U.S.), and Thunderbolt 5 Pro Cable ($69) — are available at apple.com/store.
    • Apple Intelligence is available now as a free software update for Mac with M1 and later, and can be accessed in most regions around the world when the device and Siri language are set to U.S. English. The first set of features is in beta and available with macOS Sequoia 15.1, with more features rolling out in the months to come.
    • Apple Intelligence is quickly adding support for more languages. In December, Apple Intelligence will add support for localized English in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K., and in April, a software update will deliver expanded language support, with more coming throughout the year. Chinese, English (India), English (Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese, and other languages will be supported.
    • With Apple Trade In, customers can trade in their current computer and get credit toward a new Mac. Customers can visit apple.com/shop/trade-in to see what their device is worth.
    • AppleCare+ for Mac provides unparalleled service and support. This includes unlimited incidents of accidental damage, battery service coverage, and 24/7 support from the people who know Mac best.
    • Every customer who buys directly from Apple Retail gets access to Personal Setup. In these guided online sessions, a Specialist can walk them through setup, or focus on features that help them make the most of their new device. Customers can also learn more about getting started with their new device with a Today at Apple session at their nearest Apple Store.

    About Apple Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. Apple’s six software platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV+. Apple’s more than 150,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth and to leaving the world better than we found it.

    1. Testing was conducted by Apple in September and October 2024. See apple.com/mac-mini for more information.
    2. Carbon reductions are calculated against a business-as-usual baseline scenario: No use of clean electricity for manufacturing or product use, beyond what is already available on the latest modeled grid; Apple’s carbon intensity of key materials as of 2015; and Apple’s average mix of transportation modes by product line across three years. Learn more at apple.com/2030.
    3. Results are compared to previous-generation 3.2GHz 6-core Intel Core i7-based Mac mini systems with Intel Iris UHD Graphics 630, 64GB of RAM, and 2TB SSD.
    4. Results are compared to previous-generation Mac mini systems with Apple M1, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, and 2TB SSD.
    5. Testing conducted by Apple in October 2024 using shipping competitive systems and select industry-standard benchmarks.
    6. Results are compared to previous-generation Mac mini systems with Apple M2 Pro, 12-core CPU, 19-core GPU, 32GB of RAM, and 8TB SSD.
    7. Available on Mac computers with Apple silicon and Intel-based Mac computers with a T2 Security Chip. Requires that iPhone and Mac are signed in with the same Apple Account using two-factor authentication, iPhone and Mac are near each other and have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi turned on, and Mac is not using AirPlay or Sidecar. Some iPhone features (e.g., camera and microphone) are not compatible with iPhone Mirroring.
    8. Testing was conducted by Apple in August 2024. See apple.com/safari for more information.

    Press Contacts

    Michelle Del Rio

    Apple

    mr_delrio@apple.com

    Starlayne Meza

    Apple

    starlayne_meza@apple.com

    Apple Media Helpline

    media.help@apple.com

    MIL OSI Global Banks –

  • MIL-OSI: HAProxy Fusion 1.3 Showcases the Power of a High-Performance Control Plane for App Delivery and Security

    Source: GlobeNewswire (MIL-OSI)

    NEWTON, Mass., Oct. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — HAProxy Technologies, the company behind HAProxy One, the world’s fastest application delivery and security platform, and HAProxy, the most widely used software load balancer, today announced the launch of HAProxy Fusion 1.3. HAProxy Fusion is the scalable control plane that provides full-lifecycle management, monitoring, and automation of HAProxy Enterprise deployments, and is central to the HAProxy One platform. The latest release of HAProxy Fusion significantly advances platform performance, observability, and ease of use.

    HAProxy Fusion combines a high-performance control plane with a modern GUI and API (with 100% coverage), enterprise administration, a comprehensive observability suite, and infrastructure integrations including AWS, Kubernetes, Consul, and Prometheus. Threat intelligence from HAProxy Edge, enhanced by machine learning, powers the next-gen security layers in HAProxy Fusion and HAProxy Enterprise. Today, with the release of version 1.3, HAProxy Fusion adds:

    • High-performance service discovery with near-instant configuration generation, which simplifies the automation of Kubernetes networking and application routing at scale.
    • Customizable monitoring dashboards, which enable high-level observability and the ability to drill down into granular metrics and events.
    • A pre-built security dashboard, which provides a unified view of bot management and web application firewall (WAF) data and any actions taken, empowering teams with the intelligence needed for threat response.
    • Collaborative configuration editing with efficient and low-latency updates, which makes it easier and faster for multi-team organizations to update rules safely.

    Kubernetes service discovery, first introduced in version 1.2, is made more powerful in HAProxy Fusion 1.3. New filters allow teams to pull targeted Kubernetes services into HAProxy Fusion, while performance has increased to enable dynamic generation of over 100,000 lines of HAProxy configuration in seconds. This automatic process provides everything that application teams need to route external traffic into Kubernetes clusters, including external IP addresses, routing rules, load balancing, and security layers (DDoS protection, bot management, API security, global rate limiting, and WAF). 

    “With massive Kubernetes deployments, updating traffic routing rules can be a slow process when backends are added, changed, or removed,” said Andjelko Iharos, Director of Engineering, HAProxy Technologies. “But with the power of HAProxy Fusion 1.3, the configuration is updated almost immediately. This allows businesses to be more agile and drastically simplify Kubernetes networking at scale.” 

    HAProxy was recently named a Leader in 20 G2 Fall 2024 Grid® Reports across multiple G2 categories including API Management, Container Networking, DDoS Protection, DevOps, Load Balancing, Web Application Firewall (WAF), and Web Security. HAProxy’s success in the reports was due to an exceptional Satisfaction Score of 99 and the reliability, flexibility, and performance of the platform.

    “When we say that our platform – HAProxy One – is the world’s fastest application delivery and security platform, we look at the impact of every layer,” said Dujko Radovnikovic, CEO, HAProxy Technologies. “We are known for the low latency and high throughput of HAProxy’s data plane, but high performance in the control plane is just as important – as HAProxy Fusion proves, with real benefits for large-scale customers. Very few vendors can offer the top-to-bottom performance that’s fundamental to our culture and available in the HAProxy One platform.”

    See HAProxy Technologies at KubeCon NA 2024
    HAProxy Technologies will attend KubeCon + CloudNativeCon, North America 2024 in Salt Lake City, Utah to showcase its platform and latest Kubernetes capabilities. Visit the company’s booth on November 12-15 or schedule a meeting with us.

    Join the Global HAProxy Community at HAProxyConf 2025
    HAProxyConf 2025 will take the stage in San Francisco, California, from June 3 to 5, 2025. The 2+ days flagship conference for the highly active HAProxy community will be held in the Mission Bay Conference Center, hosting expert speakers from across the open source and enterprise landscape.

    HAProxy users, customers, and developers are invited to submit a talk and become a part of HAProxyConf 2025’s exciting lineup.

    Registration for HAProxyConf 2025 is coming soon.

    About HAProxy One
    HAProxy One is the world’s fastest application delivery and security platform, from the company behind HAProxy. It combines the performance, reliability, and flexibility of our open source core (HAProxy) with the capabilities of a unified enterprise platform. Its next-generation security layers are powered by threat intelligence from HAProxy Edge, enhanced by machine learning and optimized with real-world operational feedback. The platform consists of a flexible data plane (HAProxy Enterprise and HAProxy ALOHA), a scalable control plane (HAProxy Fusion), and a secure edge network (HAProxy Edge), which together enable multi-cloud load balancing as a service (LBaaS), web app and API protection, API/AI gateways, Kubernetes networking, application delivery network (ADN), and end-to-end observability.

    About HAProxy Technologies
    HAProxy Technologies is the company behind HAProxy One, the world’s fastest application delivery and security platform, and HAProxy, the most widely used software load balancer. Leading companies and cloud providers trust HAProxy to simplify, scale, and secure modern applications, APIs, and AI services in any environment. HAProxy Technologies is headquartered in Newton, MA, with multiple offices across the US and Europe. Learn more at HAProxy.com.

    For questions or comments, please contact press@haproxy.com.

    Media Contact:
    Deb Randel, VP Marketing
    HAProxy Technologies, LLC
    press@haproxy.com

    A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/6eb842b3-7b37-4866-821c-faa14b2fac79

    The MIL Network –