The Village of Valemount hosted consultants from Strategies North, the consultancy firm Council contracted to develop a business recovery plan, last Wednesday, November 27th. Over the next six months, the firm will gather information on the economic impacts of this summer’s highway closures, lobby the provincial and federal government for more financial support of local businesses, and to find other potential solutions to help struggling businesses survive. Attendees discussed the challenges they have faced as a result of the highway closures, as well as immediate and long-term solutions for struggling business owners in Valemount. The boom-and-bust cycle of a mostly tourism-dependent economy puts business owners in a precarious place, said Michele Dallaire, owner of Infinity Office and Health. “We need to focus on the long-term, on finding people with greater capacity to spend locally,” Dallaire said. “If there are no jobs here, if rent is outrageous, then families are just struggling to meet everyday needs. Spending extra is just not going to happen.” However, attendees agreed that immediate financial aid would be a boon to businesses in the short term. “Most of us, we’re looking for some kind of grant funding to help financially float our businesses through the tough times,” said Sherrie Houghton, owner of Emerald Earth Organic Spa. “But long-term, we’re looking for some kind of solution as to how we can have more people here in Valemount to keep the community running.” President of Strategies North Grant Barley said he wasn’t surprised to hear businesses are struggling. “When you start adding up COVID, the fluctuations in weather with snowpack, then the fire, the compound effects this particular town has been dealt is tough,” he told The Goat. “I’m sure other places in Canada have those kinds of challenges, but in a B.C. context, it’s pretty unique to be impacted greatly by a fire, but not in your community.” Still, Barley said he was happy to hear that business owners are determined to stay afloat. “The one reassuring piece is when you talk to a group of entrepreneurs and somehow see they’re doing what they can to survive and look at things in a positive way,” he said. “It always gives me a sense of optimism, that sense of mentality that it takes to open a business.” It has been difficult for the Village to access government grants, since the emergency that caused the economic downturn took place in a different province, as Mayor Owen Torgerson remarked during the November 12th Council meeting. Barley said this is a challenge, but believes there may be ways for Strategies North to work around it. “We’ve had success in the past in convincing government departments to look at the way they’re administering that grant money differently on a short-term or medium-term basis because of a specific set of events,” he said. “It’s all about making it politically advantageous for them to support Valemount. It’s pretty easy when you sit in a room with them and have these discussions. You can see how important it is.” Barley added that grants may not be the only option: a tax deferment could also provide relief to Valemount businesses, he said. In any case, the firm will get creative in its efforts to provide support. “It’s trying to find out what [businesses] need and then use a variety of mechanisms to get them through this next period so that they survive it and can get back to business in the summer,” he said.fortune gems 3 jili demo 。

US indictment: Adani's foreign backer GQG goes for buyback after stock slides 19% - The Times of IndiaA federal appeals court panel on Friday unanimously upheld a law that could lead to a ban on TikTok in a few short months, handing a resounding defeat to the popular social media platform as it fights for its survival in the U.S. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied TikTok's petition to overturn the law — which requires TikTok to break ties with its China-based parent company ByteDance or be banned by mid-January — and rebuffed the company's challenge of the statute, which it argued had ran afoul of the First Amendment. “The First Amendment exists to protect free speech in the United States,” said the court's opinion, which was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg. “Here the Government acted solely to protect that freedom from a foreign adversary nation and to limit that adversary’s ability to gather data on people in the United States.” TikTok and ByteDance — another plaintiff in the lawsuit — are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court, though its unclear whether the court will take up the case. “The Supreme Court has an established historical record of protecting Americans’ right to free speech, and we expect they will do just that on this important constitutional issue," TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said in a statement. “Unfortunately, the TikTok ban was conceived and pushed through based upon inaccurate, flawed and hypothetical information, resulting in outright censorship of the American people,” Hughes said. Unless stopped, he argued the statute “will silence the voices of over 170 million Americans here in the US and around the world on January 19th, 2025.” Though the case is squarely in the court system, it's also possible the two companies might be thrown some sort of a lifeline by President-elect Donald Trump, who tried to ban TikTok during his first term but said during the presidential campaign that he is now against such action . The law, signed by President Joe Biden in April, was the culmination of a yearslong saga in Washington over the short-form video-sharing app, which the government sees as a national security threat due to its connections to China. The U.S. has said it’s concerned about TikTok collecting vast swaths of user data, including sensitive information on viewing habits , that could fall into the hands of the Chinese government through coercion. Officials have also warned the proprietary algorithm that fuels what users see on the app is vulnerable to manipulation by Chinese authorities, who can use it to shape content on the platform in a way that’s difficult to detect — a concern mirrored by the European Union on Friday as it scrutinizes the video-sharing app’s role in the Romanian elections. TikTok, which sued the government over the law in May, has long denied it could be used by Beijing to spy on or manipulate Americans. Its attorneys have accurately pointed out that the U.S. hasn’t provided evidence to show that the company handed over user data to the Chinese government, or manipulated content for Beijing’s benefit in the U.S. They have also argued the law is predicated on future risks, which the Department of Justice has emphasized pointing in part to unspecified action it claims the two companies have taken in the past due to demands from the Chinese government. Friday’s ruling came after the appeals court panel, composed of two Republicans and one Democrat appointed judges, heard oral arguments in September. In the hearing, which lasted more than two hours, the panel appeared to grapple with how TikTok’s foreign ownership affects its rights under the Constitution and how far the government could go to curtail potential influence from abroad on a foreign-owned platform. On Friday, all three denied TikTok’s petition. In the court's ruling, Ginsburg, a Republican appointee, rejected TikTok's main legal arguments against the law, including that the statute was an unlawful bill of attainder, or a taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment. He also said the law did not violate the First Amendment because the government is not looking to "suppress content or require a certain mix of content” on TikTok. “Content on the platform could in principle remain unchanged after divestiture, and people in the United States would remain free to read and share as much PRC propaganda (or any other content) as they desire on TikTok or any other platform of their choosing,” Ginsburg wrote, using the abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China. Judge Sri Srinivasan, the chief judge on the court, issued a concurring opinion. TikTok’s lawsuit was consolidated with a second legal challenge brought by several content creators — for which the company is covering legal costs — as well as a third one filed on behalf of conservative creators who work with a nonprofit called BASED Politics Inc. Other organizations, including the Knight First Amendment Institute, had also filed amicus briefs supporting TikTok. “This is a deeply misguided ruling that reads important First Amendment precedents too narrowly and gives the government sweeping power to restrict Americans’ access to information, ideas, and media from abroad,” said Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the organization. “We hope that the appeals court’s ruling won’t be the last word.” Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, lawmakers who had pushed for the legislation celebrated the court's ruling. "I am optimistic that President Trump will facilitate an American takeover of TikTok to allow its continued use in the United States and I look forward to welcoming the app in America under new ownership,” said Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, chairman of the House Select Committee on China. Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who co-authored the law, said “it's time for ByteDance to accept” the law. To assuage concerns about the company’s owners, TikTok says it has invested more than $2 billion to bolster protections around U.S. user data. The company has also argued the government’s broader concerns could have been resolved in a draft agreement it provided the Biden administration more than two years ago during talks between the two sides. It has blamed the government for walking away from further negotiations on the agreement, which the Justice Department argues is insufficient. Attorneys for the two companies have claimed it’s impossible to divest the platform commercially and technologically. They also say any sale of TikTok without the coveted algorithm — the platform’s secret sauce that Chinese authorities would likely block under any divesture plan — would turn the U.S. version of TikTok into an island disconnected from other global content. Still, some investors, including Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, have expressed interest in purchasing the platform. Both men said earlier this year that they were launching a consortium to purchase TikTok’s U.S. business. This week, a spokesperson for McCourt’s Project Liberty initiative, which aims to protect online privacy, said unnamed participants in their bid have made informal commitments of more than $20 billion in capital.

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Head coach Vanni Sartini paid the price Monday for the Vancouver Whitecaps’ mediocre results this past season and subsequent first-round playoff exit. His firing came about two weeks after the Major League Soccer team won a play-in game before falling to top-seeded Los Angeles FC in a three-game series that went the distance. “The desperation on my side is absolutely there,” said Axel Schuster, the Whitecaps’ sporting director and chief executive officer. One of the reasons for the change, he said, is everyone in the organization, including himself, needs a reminder that playoff success next year is imperative. “We cannot not get there.” The Whitecaps haven’t reached the conference semifinals since 2017. In a one-hour availability with reporters, Schuster noted the team had the second-worst home record in the Western Conference this year and recorded just two points over its last seven regular-season games. He referenced the need for fresh energy from a new coach and added there was no firm timeline in place for a replacement to be named. “I had to make a professional decision (for) how we can get the biggest impact to make this step forward and to get to a progression,” he said. The Whitecaps’ late-season slump dropped them to eighth place in the West with a record of 13-13-8. Vancouver won a play-in game at Portland before dropping a 1-0 decision at LAFC in the deciding game of the series. Vancouver also won its third-straight Canadian championship this season, beating Toronto FC 4-2 on penalties after the final ended in a 0-0 tie. “I took my time with this decision, and it was not taken lightly,” Schuster said. Sartini, a 47-year-old from Florence, Italy, took over coaching duties on an interim basis in August 2021 after the Whitecaps dismissed Marc Dos Santos. He was officially named head coach that November. “For the last three years and three months, it has been an absolute honour to be the head coach of Vancouver Whitecaps FC,” Sartini said in a release. “I will always be grateful to Axel Schuster and ownership for entrusting me to be the technical lead of this club in such an important time. “Vancouver will always have a special place in my heart and my wife’s heart,” he added. He posted a record of 57-51-39 across all competitions. The exuberant Italian made headlines in November 2023 when he publicly criticized a referee following a playoff game and made a joke about being a suspect if the official were to be found dead. He was suspended for the first six games of the 2024 MLS campaign, fined US$20,000 and ordered to complete a league-approved behavioural assessment. The coach later apologized for the comments and his suspension was cut to four games. Sartini came to Vancouver in 2019 as Dos Santos’ assistant coach and spent two seasons with the first team before being named the club’s “director of methodology” and taking over coaching the U-23 team in 2020. Before joining the Whitecaps, he worked as a coach educator for the Italian Football Federation and the U.S. Soccer Federation, and coached several different clubs in Italy.

Percentages: FG 58.929, FT .615. 3-Point Goals: 16-33, .485 (Laube 10-15, McDermott 3-7, Jaeger 1-3, Wetering 1-1, Reyerson 1-2, Goebel 0-1, Green 0-1, Wharton 0-3) Blocked Shots: 7 (Goebel 3, Reyerson 2, Jaeger 1, Wharton 1) Turnovers: 16 (Jaeger 5, Goebel 2, McDermott 2, Wharton 2, Wetering 1, Laube 1, Corbin 1, Reyerson 1, Team 1) Steals: 11 (Goebel 4, Jaeger 2, McDermott 2, Wharton 2, Laube 1) Technical Fouls: None Percentages: FG 49.153, FT .750. 3-Point Goals: 13-20, .650 (Perkins 6-6, Biggs 2-3, Battle 2-3, Elmore 1-3, Washenitz 1-3, Johnson 1-2) Blocked Shots: None. Turnovers: 21 (Johnson 6, Elmore 4, Washenitz 4, Malcolm 2, Battle 2, Perkins 2, Boswell 1) Steals: 9 (Washenitz 2, Elmore 1, Biggs 1, Boswell 1, Malcolm 1, Battle 1, Miles 1, Perkins 1) Technical Fouls: None A_0 Officials_Kara Hunter, Leah Lanie, Brandon Enterline

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