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Edited Transcript of ICUI earnings conference call or presentation 11-Nov-19 9:30pm GMT
Thomson Reuters StreetEvents December 2, 2019
Q3 2019 ICU Medical Inc Earnings Call
San Clemente Dec 2, 2019 (Thomson StreetEvents) -- Edited Transcript of ICU Medical Inc earnings conference call or presentation Monday, November 11, 2019 at 9:30:00pm GMT
TEXT version of Transcript
Corporate Participants
* Scott E. Lamb
ICU Medical, Inc. - CFO & Treasurer
* Vivek Jain
ICU Medical, Inc. - Chairman of the Board & CEO
* Jayson Tyler Bedford
Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division - Senior Medical Supplies and Devices Analyst
* Matthew Ian Mishan
KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division - VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst
* Peter Lucas
* John Mills
ICR, LLC - Managing Partner
Operator [1]
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Q3 2019 ICU Medical, Inc. Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to hand the call over to Mr. John Mills with ICR. Thank you. Please go ahead.
John Mills, ICR, LLC - Managing Partner [2]
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us today to discuss the ICU Medical Financial Results for the Third Quarter of 2019. On the call today representing ICU Medical is Vivek Jain, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman; and Scott Lamb, Chief Financial Officer. We wanted to let everyone know we have a presentation accompanying today's prepared remarks and to view the presentation, please go to our Investor page at icumed.com and click on the Events Calendar and it will be under the Third Quarter 2019 Events.
Before we start our prepared remarks, I want to touch upon any forward-looking statements made during the call, including beliefs and expectations about the company's future results. Please be aware they are based on the best available information to management and assumptions that are reasonable. Such statements are not intended to be a representation of future results and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Future results may differ materially from management's current expectations. We refer all of you to the company's SEC filings for more detailed information on the risks and uncertainties that have a direct bearing on operating results and financial position.
Please note that during today's call, we will also be discussing non-GAAP financial measures, including results on an adjusted basis. We believe these financial measures can facilitate a more complete analysis and greater transparency in the ICU Medical's ongoing results of operations, particularly when comparing underlying results from period to period. We've also included a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures in today's release and provided as much detail as possible on any addendums that are added back. And with that, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Vivek.
Vivek Jain, ICU Medical, Inc. - Chairman of the Board & CEO [3]
Thanks, John. Good afternoon, everybody. The third quarter of fiscal 2019 showed commercial stability, with revenue improvement in our most valuable product lines and allows us to hold firm on our view of profitability in the near term. We showed cost improvements on the P&L from TSA savings and operating efficiencies, and our actual cash restructuring expenses have begun to come down.
We were also able to deploy a modest amount of capital into the Pursuit acquisition that we will further describe. We had a number of important customer wins during the quarter and are executing well with high service levels to our customers. Our time was equally split on external commercial activities and internally on the work to mitigate the operational slowdown in IV Solutions, which we started in the summer and described on the last call.
On today's call, we wanted to first comment on Q3 results and discuss our current view of the business and the recent performance trends; second, provide an update of the actions we've been taking, given the market dynamics and their impact; third, mention a few quality and housekeeping items; and lastly, outline the criteria we are judging ourselves by and our near-term goals and how they fit with the longer-term positioning of the company and the opportunity for value creation.
Q3 was a reasonably clean quarter after our difficult Q2 commentary. The company is operationally running well, the competitive environment seems to have stabilized a bit, and we have been catching up on our lingering production issues. The income statement was straightforward, with a sequential increase in our consumables revenues and stability in our other lines that allowed us to deliver EBITDA down the middle of our revised guidance provided during the last call. We finished the quarter with $291 million in adjusted revenue, adjusted EBITDA came in at $63 million, adjusted EPS came in at $1.65, and cash was $337 million. Adjusted revenue was down 3% quarter-over-quarter on a constant currency basis due largely to the IV Solutions segment. There were no unusual charges. Restructuring and integration charges were down to $8 million, and we added cash to our balance sheet before the Pursuit acquisition.
Let's start with Infusion Consumables, which is our largest business and try to go into a bit more detail than on previous calls. Infusion Consumables had revenues of $120 million in Q3 2019, which implied a 3% increase year-over-year, adjusted for currency, and 2% growth on a reported basis. U.S. volumes were okay, not great, and we did have a number of important customer wins that have slowly started to implement.
We know it has been on our and our investors' minds why is this segment slowed down versus historical periods. And at the same time, we've been saying for the last few calls that there hasn't been major customer churn, volumes are okay, we had some wins, et cetera. To go into a bit more detail, over the last 3 or 4 quarters, we've been dealing with a number of items, and hopefully, most of these are in the rearview mirror. Starting just about a year ago, we cut over our IT systems and that did have an impact in Q4 of 2018 and a portion of the first half of 2019. That is behind us now. We also were capacity-constrained in our oncology products and could not serve the full market demand. It's still a bit slow but that also is getting behind us now.
Lastly, we had some unique subcategory dynamics outside of the normal horsetrading of the competitive environment. As we mentioned on the last call, we went backwards on our OEM orders for our SwabCap products, and we also faced competitive pressure from external innovation in certain of our dialysis product lines. The OEM situation will normalize over time, and we felt we had to address the challenge on external innovation via the acquisition of Pursuit Vascular.
It was a situation we have been tracking for years, and the time and circumstance just made it actionable now. We recognize it is a bit different from our historical transactions from a value perspective, but we felt if we were going to take a bit of risk anywhere, it would be in our consumables segment.
So what did we like about Pursuit Vascular? First, we felt it was a straightforward acquisition, a small number of product SKUs with consumables manufacturing that we deeply understand; second, aside from the cannibalization factor, it gave us what we thought was the best product in a globally growing market category; third, we liked the clinical positioning. They underwrote a number of solid studies that showed strong clinical superiority and allowed them to get important label claims that really require a lot of time and investment to receive, and we had some familiarity with this topic from previous experiences. Lastly, we felt that the core technology, and as much their know-how, could help differentiate our consumables business over time. So that's why we did it.
The rest of the segment was pretty much as we expected. This is the segment where we're the most advantaged now as a joint entity. We have largely rationalized the product portfolio and brought together the operational efficiencies of the combination. Commercially, we have all the pieces, all the technology, all the scale to compete globally and should be able to offer more value to the customer. Again, there may have been individual puts and takes in this segment so it may not be a perfectly smooth curve, but we continue to feel positive about this segment into Q4 and beyond.
On Infusion Systems, which is the business selling pumps, dedicated sets and software, which is important because it's a business that brings a lot of recurring revenues and helps to support our competitiveness in consumables. This segment did $80 million in adjusted revenue, which was flat on a constant currency basis and down 2% reported, which was in line with our expectations.
To give a bit of a longer story on pumps, we have a few different product categories in which we operate. The vast majority of our product line is our core large volume infusion pumps, LVP for short, segment here, and the primary product line is called the Plum LVP pump. This is a product that the old ICU Medical, pre-deal, was deeply dependent on and that had lost significant ground in the U.S. market since 2010.
For the first time in many years, we can say that our U.S. installed base actually was larger at the end of Q3 versus the end of the prior year. Now, this is not a big amount, but it validates our comments on saying we felt we had stabilized the Plum installed base of pumps. And while we know there are still maybe historical losses that have not yet come out of our installed base, we believe we are holding enough competitive wins to offset those and potentially surpass. We've gotten back to the core marketing message as there's been a number of independent clinical reviews that had validated the differentiation of the Plum. Some of those are around the original core technology benefits and some of those are in the newer differentiators like cybersecurity and connectivity.
So that's good for us that the core LVP segment, our Infusion Systems, business is growing. However, we do have some headwinds on the periphery from the non-LVP products in this segment such as the dedicated pre-filled or empty syringes for the PCA pumps that we get from Pfizer Rocky Mount. We described this issue on the last call and it continues to hurt. Pfizer does seem to be making progress on the issue but the challenge has been, given the lack of consistent supply, a portion of the installed base has chosen to move away from these products.
For us strategically, the Plum line drives the majority of value since it's more closely linked to the rest of our businesses and is very sticky when customers commit, and we feel the best we have about it since we bought the business. Growing our pump installed base is a long-term strategic priority, but the short-term practical challenge is we do not realize positive cash flow or earnings in the initial period of pump wins and these non-LVP products still generate positive cash flow earnings, and we're absorbing those hits on our P&L and we wanted to make that clear to investors.
The value-creation aspects of real incremental cash flow happen over time as we improve our installed base, and we continue to feel like we are in good dialogue across a number of geographies.
Finishing this segment discussion with Infusion Solutions. We had $81 million in adjusted revenue or down 12% year-over-year or up $1 million sequentially. We did see and feel some more stable footing here at these levels. We'll skip the usual solution stump speech for this call and just cut to the chase. Commercially, we did have some wins that have started to come into our book. These wins allowed us to handle the change in competitive environment better as we stepped in to defend our market share and handle the continued erosion of our noncommitted business. We continue to believe the quality of our customer book has improved with us holding the best list of sustainable relationships versus the day we bought the business, and we have survived the bleed-out of the majority of the trading oriented business.
Operationally, everything we stated on the last call was happening. We have significant safety stock in place that we now characterize as permanent. We have reduced production, slowed the factory, took extra down days, have stopped taking delivery of unnecessary volume from Pfizer, et cetera. On the 2 main items we described in the last call, the negativity from manufacturing variances and the negativity from supply chain overage costs, we're actively getting after the manufacturing variances and feel good about our ability to run the best production environment we can. The supply chain variances are slower to show improvement. Doesn't make sense even if it helps the P&L to destroy more product as necessary, and it will eventually come out of the system. We are still trying to make the best choices with our capital and resources here, and it doesn't make sense to put good money after bad for short-term decisions.
Moving on to housekeeping items. In Q3, global fulfillment rates have been very solid to the customer. I would like to thank our teams, again, even in this reporting quarter, with other companies reporting. We've seen the impact that these IT system cutovers can have. While painful and expensive, we did survive our extraction from Pfizer. The only item left is the conversion of the manufacturing site in Austin, which is still on schedule to be completed by mid-next year. Then we're fully stood up, and our attention will shift to optimizing what we've done.
At some level, we were on a shot clock from Pfizer with the deadline to stand up, and we do wonder, did we overbuild a bit relative to if we were starting with a clean sheet of paper. We do think this is one of our competencies, and we'll address the opportunities as they present themselves over time.
From a quality perspective, not much really to report as there were no material audits or inspections in Q3. We are still awaiting the next Austin inspection and we're prepared. We did have some disclosure around certain recalls of products made in 2017 and 2018, which were necessary and done in the right fashion to communicate to the customer and to be compliant and in-sync with the regulatory agencies.
We wanted to reflect a bit on our previous comments and discuss about how we feel about them today. We said for many quarters that we felt we could still create value even in the face of a tougher revenue environment, and we've always said that we believed in our most differentiated businesses of IV consumables and IV systems and the attractiveness of the industry structure merited that point of view.
Today, given the reset in revenues in IV Solutions, the first comment still applies but probably to a somewhat lesser degree. We will show again this year our ability to reduce costs and run as efficiently as possible but it gets harder to have this be a material contribution given the improvements we've already made. So for us, and the criterion lens we're judging ourselves by from this basis has to be the ability to improve our position in the most differentiated businesses and to prove stability in our less differentiated businesses.
We've been consistently saying that we've been actively calling on customers and trying to illustrate the value we can add to the system and the value to the system in having us as a healthy participant. While it's a long journey, we do believe that this message is resonating, and we have the right to win across the product lines. Feedback on the products continues to be solid. The products are necessary for the system and have been reliable for many years. We never assumed it was a straight line up, and we cannot flip our behavior into short-term focus even with the recent changes.
We'll continue investing in R&D, appropriate capacity expansion into our production network and into commercial resources to serve our customers. In the short term, meaning the rest of 2019, we feel solid on our previous guidance for the full fiscal year. In the medium term, we're working through the various puts and takes, and we'll provide guidance on our year-end earnings call. We're trying to balance our return to predictability in consumables, the improvement in our LVP category and related investment in manufacturing offsets against the negativity of the non-LVP items in Infusion Systems, slowness in realizing some of the supply chain savings and making sure we budget to compete properly in the less differentiated items. Ultimately, it comes down to growing our differentiated highest margin lines and running ourselves as efficiently as possible over time.
We need to continue to be cautious given the environment and what we did to our shareholders and ourselves when we rebased our view on the last call. We know what we put everyone through, and we still have a belief that we'll absolutely maximize profitability over time to the most sensible level in our business like we always have. We still believe that even with a little less cash, we have a safe and strong balance sheet that can protect shareholders and be deployed for value creation as opportunities emerge. We have made significant capital investments into our factories and systems over the last 2 years and are in the final stages of some major production upgrades, with more sterilization vertically integrated across our network and as aside, we could talk about our EtO exposure, new tooling and an investment mindset for quality and growth.
We still believe the categories are deeply valuable with a number of intrinsic value drivers, including high-quality or hard-to-reproduce production assets and sticky product categories where there is strong differentiation. We have a set of experienced people do the work, and we have a culture of not wasting shareholder resources and respect for our capital. But even with all of this, the environment is still fluid, earnings lag revenues in some of our businesses, and we do not -- anyone to get ahead of our actual results because the competitive environment is still hard.
As always, I'd like to close with, things are moving fast. We're trying to improve the company with urgency, we're trying to take responsible actions and break some of the inertia that many companies in our position face. We have hit some bumps, we've taken action to overcome them, and we will emerge stronger.
I really appreciate the effort of all company employees to adapt, to move forward and focus on improving results, and our company appreciates the support we received both from our customers and our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Scott.
Scott E. Lamb, ICU Medical, Inc. - CFO & Treasurer [4]
Thanks, Vivek, and good afternoon, everyone. To begin, I'll first walk down the P&L and then talk a little about cash and balance sheet. So our third quarter 2019 GAAP revenue was $307 million compared to $327 million or down 6% from last year, down 5% on a constant currency basis. For your reference, the 2018 and 2019 adjusted revenue numbers, which exclude contract manufacturing sales to Pfizer at cost, can be seen on Slide #3 of the presentation.
Our adjusted revenue for the quarter was $291 million compared to $305 million last year, down 5%, or 3% on a constant currency basis. Infusion Consumables were $120 million, up 2%, or 3% on a constant currency basis. IV Solutions, which we primarily sell in the U.S., were $81 million, down 12%. Infusion Systems were $80 million, down 2%, or flat on a constant currency basis, and Critical Care was down $2 million, 21%, or 20% on a constant currency basis. Adjusted diluted earnings per share for the third quarter of 2019 were $1.65 compared to $1.88 for the third quarter last year. Our adjusted earnings per share for the quarter was unfavorably impacted by approximately $0.10 related to certain adjustments in connection with the filing of our 2018 tax return.
We estimate our GAAP tax rate for the full year to be in the range of 16% to 18% and the non-GAAP rate to be in the range of 20% to 22%. And finally, adjusted EBITDA decreased 8% to $63 million for the third quarter of this year compared to $68 million last year.
Now as you can see from Slide #4 of the presentation, our adjusted gross margin for the third quarter was 41% compared to 44% for the third quarter last year. The 2 largest drivers for the year-over-year decrease were similar to the last quarter and included the impact from the ramp down of IV Solutions production and the associated lost overhead absorption as well as additional supply chain costs related to higher-than-optimal inventory levels.
And as expected, year-over-year SG&A decreased approximately $11 million and were 21% of revenues compared to 23% of revenues for the third quarter last year. The decrease came primarily from TSA savings as a result of separating from Pfizer and standing up the business on their own. And as a percent of revenue, R&D expenses were relatively flat year-over-year.
Restructuring, strategic transaction and integration expenses were down to $8 million in the third quarter versus $24 million last year and this is primarily the system integration costs for our Austin manufacturing facility.
Now moving onto cash and our balance sheet. For the quarter, free cash flow was $26 million as cash increased to $337 million in the quarter. And as expected, net working capital increased slightly in the quarter due to an increase in cash and inventory, offset by a decrease in accounts receivable. And with the closing of the Pursuit Vascular acquisition, we would expect cash at the end of the year to be approximately $275 million.
In the third quarter, we spent $25 million on CapEx, primarily related to general maintenance, system integration, capacity expansion for our consumables business and transferring a portion of our contracted solutions products from Pfizer to our Austin manufacturing facility. And as we said on our last call, we still expect to invest in the business this year similar to what we spent last year or approximately $100 million.
Lastly, I would like to say we are looking forward to working with our new associates at Pursuit Vascular for even greater success and continue to help drive our business forward.
And with that, I'd like to turn the call over for any questions.
(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Jayson Bedford from Raymond James.
Jayson Tyler Bedford, Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division - Senior Medical Supplies and Devices Analyst [2]
Just a few here. Maybe I could start on the gross profit line, which came in higher than we expected, and I assume most of it's on the IV Solutions side. You mentioned that results earlier were generally in line with your expectations. Was gross profit -- or gross margin also in line with your thinking?
Yes, Jayson. On the gross margin, we expected the second half of the year to be down from the first half of the year and we expect the fourth quarter to be down from the third quarter.
Most of the cost, Jayson, and the -- gets rolled into the manufacturing costs, and so you don't see it right away. So the slowdown, as we talked about before, is going to be felt largely into Q4, maybe a little bit in Q1. I think we said publicly that those were going to be the most painful from a gross margin perspective.
Okay. So maybe just to follow up on that. When looking at the $15 million in supply chain costs that you identified last quarter, roughly how much of this did you recognize or incur in 3Q? And is this still -- $15 million, is it still a good number?
It still a good number. As we mentioned earlier on the call, the supply chain costs are going to take a little bit longer to come out of the system than we had originally thought, but we do see a path forward and that's still a good number.
Okay. Just jumping to the top line a bit. On consumables, you identified a few headwinds. Is there any way to, kind of, quantify the impact of those headwinds in the quarter or at least discuss your thoughts in the fourth quarter? What's the right run rate here on consumables?
I mean, there's been a lot of puts and takes since the day we did the cutover last October between Oncology, between SwabCap, between some of these other things. I'd rather say, Jayson, that we just -- back to normalcy for us is proving that we can grow that business, right? We had 4 years of good growth and it slowed down a bit as we went through this thing. I don't know that we have a magic number that we're targeting. Let us get through Q4 and finish the rest of the stuff and then we'll put it out there for next year.
Okay. On systems, and specifically on the PCA pump dynamic, I think, last call, you mentioned that Pfizer should be running consistently by year-end. Is that still the case or has that been pushed out a bit?
Vivek Jain, ICU Medical, Inc. - Chairman of the Board & CEO [10]
It's gotten better and has gotten better. But we still were behind for a portion of this quarter and so we were paying some combination fees and stuff. So it's -- it hurts. It hurt us this quarter too. It is getting better. They've put up real time and money in it but it's been slow.
Jayson Tyler Bedford, Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division - Senior Medical Supplies and Devices Analyst [11]
Okay. And I'll take the bait on the ethylene oxide exposure teaser there. Can you just maybe comment on your relative exposure there?
Yes. I'm sorry, I went off the script there. Almost none. We have less than 4% of our outsourced sterilization in EtO. We don't use either Illinois or Georgia. We use the other company. And for us, that's where a portion of all that CapEx we've been putting into the business has gone, and we were vertically integrated in Ensenada. We've doubled down on that, and we put up the capital to vertically integrate our own sterilization in Costa Rica. So that's, sort of, something we did right with e-beam right at the offset of these deals. That's not to say we were so smart, we were just already committed to e-beam, and we believe in the integration ourselves.
Operator [13]
Our next question comes from the line of Larry Solow from CJS Securities.
Peter Lucas, [14]
Yes. Actually, it's Pete Lucas for Larry. Just a question on the IV therapy market. I think you categorized it as still slow but capacity issues getting behind us. Just wondering, looking at how we should look at sales growth going forward, is 4% to 6% still attainable as you look out over the next several years or any number or guidance you could give us towards that?
Sure. I'm not totally certain. So we think about our businesses, IV consumables or IV systems, the hardware business or solutions, I think we were a little bit of different across those lines. I think in consumables, we generally were a positive momentum behind our consumables business for 3 or 4 years, that slowed down. I think what we're trying to say is, we feel like we're getting back to being consistently positive there. In solutions, it's been unbelievably negative for the last 4 quarters with big volatility in the actual amount of sales. And I think there, we're trying to say, we revised guidance in a painful way. I think we still believe the revised numbers we put out there in the summer apply, and we felt like we feel okay about that for the current moment. I don't want to add it up to a whole company level, we'll do that when we put our guidance properly after what we've been through.
Great, very helpful. And you guys have answered a lot of the questions. Just one big-picture question for you. Any update on anything new with regards to Smiths Medical? Some recent articles in the press had suggested they may reconsider a sale or at least willing to entertain talks with potential interested parties. I don't know if there's anything you could add to that.
I think we would say we have no comment, and we do not want any of our shareholders to speculate or make assumptions about things happening. We had shareholders who suffered last year as a result, and we want to be very transparent about that. So please no -- I don't want to say anything, we have no comment on that situation or any other situation, right, we're not going to do that.
Our last question comes from the line of Matthew Mishan from KeyBanc.
Matthew Ian Mishan, KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division - VP and Senior Equity Research Analyst [19]
Congratulations on stability and nice work you've put.
Have you ever had to say that before? Have you ever said that before at a call?
It's the first one I said congratulations on. Going back to Pursuit, this is like the first one, you -- the first bolt-on type acquisition you've done in a while. Are there -- is there a pipeline of these type of deals that you're potentially looking at, small, strategic technology rises?
I don't know that there's a long list. There's a very few number of those types of things out there. Yes, I feel like we didn't have time until we finish the integration or got very close to the end here of integration even look, we've put somebody in a job who spends their time doing that. And our model has always been -- we're not that big, right? And so the free cash flow we could make out of our business could support just one of those things each year, if they were available. I don't necessarily think there's one of those available every single year. But there's a -- there are a few out there, but you just have to be patient. I mean, we really, tongue in cheek, we pursued this thing for a while, and it took time to just find this moment. It's not a huge list.
Okay. And then could you maybe give some scale to the LVP versus the other category in the infusion business so we can understand a little bit of the headwind you're facing versus, I guess, is it something in which -- or is it easily overcome?
It's getting close from a revenue perspective, I think, to overcome it. It's a 90/10-ish type situation or something like that. But you still make some money on the 10, so it hurts from an earnings perspective because you're not substituting with equal margin contributive stuff right out of on day 1, right? So it hurts economically even if it's manageable from a revenue perspective.
Okay. And then, you've typically given, like, directionally forward EBITDA guidance on the third quarter call, and I do appreciate that you want some more visibility this time. But can you go over some of the larger moving pieces that we should be thinking about into next year?
Sure. I mean, I think we're trying to say our criteria for ourselves is can we grow the stuff that's the most differentiated? And so for us, it's getting back to normals consumables growth. Oncology is a portion of that and regular consumables is a portion of that. Then on the systems business, revenue-wise, how much positive revenues do you have in LVP minus the negative of the PCA, et cetera, even though that may hurt from an earnings perspective? And in solutions, we tried to offer -- we're judging ourselves by stability, meaning we said a little bit below where we actually landed this quarter is where we thought things are. I think that continues to be our view. That was our framework plus capital deployment, if any, minus the negatives of getting back the supply chain costs and the other things that we talked about in the last call.
Okay. And last one, then I'm going to jump back -- then I'm going to jump off. How are customers, kind of, gearing up for USP 800 at this point? I think there's some delays and there's a language change? Are -- have you seen it impact, kind of, the customer behavior and how they're looking to adopt it?
I think it's a different answer for different parts of the market. I think the customer base that we currently hold, which I would call as, kind of, large institutions, they, for the most part, have recognized that this is coming a budget for it and have to operate within like a best-in-class environment for even their own clinicians' safety, and so we could sell every piece we could make to that audience. Some states have delayed, there has been some language changes. The more local office, clinic stuff, where the cost is additional, et cetera, probably, we would expect to slow down a little bit but that's not where really our business is tilted at the moment. So that's a bit of tomorrow's problem because we think we have enough opportunity just to get the larger institutions that are in front of us.
We have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Vivek Jain for closing remarks.
Okay. Thanks, everybody. It was a quick call on Q3. We appreciate you joining us on Veterans Day here. For those of you who don't know, our office backs up to Camp Pendleton, and we see how hard and how serious the people who work there are, and so we appreciate everything that they do. And we look forward to talking to everybody on our year-end call. Thanks very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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This means that your attitude towards money could be inherited from the generations that preceded you. Are you someone who is spending far more than you earn? Do you hoard every penny? Some of these habits can be traced back to when your family members discussed money when you were a kid, or stories they told about their own experiences with finances.
It's essential to be aware of the ways that your ancestors' experiences with money might influence yours. If it was excessive or insufficient the same dynamics are still present in modern households today--but you have the chance to create something more beneficial for you and future generations by understanding the underlying principles of your relationship with money.
Recognize where these ideas come from and also be mindful of how they affect the way you see your financial security and stability as an adult. This allows us to decouple our feelings and beliefs around money, ultimately reframing our perspective on its role in our lives of today.
Burning Ritual at Your Ancestral Altar
A candle lit on your ancestral altar is a means to pay tribute to your relatives. It creates an avenue between living people and the dead, linking us to our beloved family.
The way you light the candle lets them know that you remember you remember them. The ancestors recognize that somebody has lit a candle for them--a ritual of respect and reverence.
The ritual is a way to keep the connection to the world around them, providing what they need in their spiritual journey and connecting them to yours.
It is the way we stay in touch with where we came from, while pursuing our own individual paths.
Through this practice, we show respect for those who came before us and show our gratefulness for their numerous gifts.
Even though they might not necessarily be physically present anymore, through this burning ritual on the altar of our ancestral homes, we can share a special moment with loved ones we lost - one that will never be lost in the past.
The blessings that come from the burning of the ancestral wealth is an ancient ritual that can bring unimaginable joy, and peace to a blessing seeker. Regardless of how you choose to carry out this ritual and how you do it, it can impact your life in many positive ways. As with everything else related to spirituality it is a matter of intention and dedication to get the most effective results. With dedication and thoughtfulness, you will likely find it to be a powerful gesture that could truly alter your life.
Are you ready to deepen your spiritual awareness? Learn more here: https://twitter.com/galighticus
Info: https://castlemaineaus.xyz/2022/10/17/health-benefits-of-kombucha-tea
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Q: Setting last N bits in an array I'm sure this is fairly simple, however I have a major mental block on it, so I need a little help here!
I have an array of 5 integers, the array is already filled with some data. I want to set the last N bits of the array to be random noise.
[int][int][int][int][int]

eg. set last 40 bits

[unchanged][unchanged][unchanged][24 bits of old data followed 8 bits of randomness][all random]

This is largely language agnostic, but I'm working in C# so bonus points for answers in C#

A: Without any bit-fu in C#:
BitArray ba = new BitArray (originalIntArray);
for (int i = startToReplaceFrom; i < endToReplaceTo; i++)
    ba.Set (i, randomValue);

A: When you XOR any data with random data, the result is random, so you can do this:
Random random = new Random();
x[x.Length - 2] ^= random.Next(1 << 8);
x[x.Length - 1] = random.Next(1 << 16);
x[x.Length - 1] ^= random.Next(1 << 16) << 16;

For a general solution for any N you can use a loop:
for (int i = 0; i < 40; ++i)
{
    x[x.Length - i / 32 - 1] ^= random.Next(2) << (i % 32);
}

Note that this calls random more times than necessary, but is simple.

A: In pseudo-Python:
N        = 5   # array size
bits     = 40  # for instance
int_bits = 32  # bits in one integer

i = N
while bits > 0:
    value_bits  = min (bits, int_bits)
    bits       -= value_bits
    mask        = (1 << value_bits) - 1

    i -= 1
    array[i] ^= random () & mask

A: Int32 is 4 bytes or 32 bits.
So you need the last int, and 8 bits extra.

int lastEightBitsMask = 0x000F + 1;
  Random rand = new Random();
  arr[arr.Length - 1] = rand.Next();
  arr[arr.Length - 2] ^= rand.Next(lastEightBitsMask);

Explanation:
The last element's modification should be pretty clear - if you need the last 40 bits, the last 32 bits are included in that.
The remaining eight bits's modification is bounded above by 0x000F + 1, since rand.Next's argument is an exclusive upper bound, the randoms generated will be no more than that. The remaining bits of the number will stay the same, since 1^0 == 1 and 0^0 == 0.

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Five reasons Canberra is better than the Gold Coast
Thu 23 Jun 2016, 05:00 PM
Canberra often gets a bad rap. Cold, boring, endless roundabouts and too far away from the beach. We're here to set the record straight and the first city we have in our sights is the Gold Coast. Read on for the five reasons why Canberra is better than the Gold Coast.
The swimming options
Sharks, blue bottles, cyclonic swells and regular invasions of foamy water. Doesn't sound that nice does it?
Gold Coast's Burleigh Beach not quite living up to its postcard reputation.
Compare that to crystal clear water, refreshing temperatures all year round and the latest in cutting edge paddle boat design!
Have you ever seen paddle boats at Surfers Paradise...? We didn't think so.
Surfers Paradise doesn't even rate a mention against Australia's premier inland swimming hole – the idyllic Lake Burley Griffin.
Valentine Holmes, Ben Barba, Gerald Beale and Jack Bird agree with us as well, with the Sharks quartet giving the lake a thumbs up on a recent trip to the capital.
The Sharks boys before they stopped for a quick dip and bodysurf at Yarralumla Beach.
The players agree
Junior Paulo had only been in Canberra for a few days before he emphatically declared that Canberra "is pretty much God's country isn't it."
Now Junior may be slightly biased but we challenge you to argue with the 125kg enforcer. After seeing what he did to Jamie Buhrer we are taking what he says as the truth.
That's a tick to Canberra.
We ain't disagreeing with Junior.
Canberra plays host to the attraction that trumps all other attractions. Questacon.
Questacon's world famous sideshow alley exhibition.
The much-loved attraction easily outstrips Gold Coast's aging theme parks and endless array of souvenir shops.
Add in must-see places like the War Memorial, National Museum and the Mal Meninga statue at GIO Stadium and it's easy to see why Canberra will soon have international flights operating out of the airport.
The team at the War Memorial earlier in the year.
This one is a no-brainer. Who in their right mind would want to endure year after year of tropical storms, sweltering humidity and cyclones?
Aidan Sezer sure didn't. Leaving Gold Coast behind for the delights of Canberra is a move we believe was motivated partly by the weather. As evidenced by the picture below, it's singlet weather all year round for Sezer in the Nation's Capital.
Suns out, guns out for Sezer.
In all seriousness the Gold Coast might slightly edge Canberra out in the weather stakes, especially in winter time. Being prepared for all weather conditions is key in sports though. Our first two homes games this year were played in temperatures nudging 40 degrees, a big contrast to the famous snow game in 2000.
Canberra gets the nod ahead of the Gold Coast again
If only we could play the Titans in these conditions.
Our rugby league team
Premierships: Canberra 3 - Titans 0.
Can't argue with this one. The Titans might have only had a short spell in the NRL but they have a lot of catching up to do to match the Raiders trophy cabinet.
A minor slip-up in round four saw the Titans snatch the two points away from the Raiders, but our boys will be out to rectify that this Sunday.
Checkmate Gold Coast.
So there you have it – five reasons why Canberra in undoubtedly a better place to live, visit and play the greatest game of all in.
Agree or disagree with us? Head over to our Facebook page and let us know your thoughts!


text:
John Humphrys - Is Brexit at risk from the Arch-Brexiteer?
Few politicians, if any, can claim to have been as crucial to the Brexit cause as Nigel Farage. Yet he is now being accused of jeopardising the whole venture. He's insisting that in the general election his Brexit Party will stand in constituencies the Tories need to gain if they are to secure the majority in the next House of Commons they need to 'get Brexit done'. This risks splitting the pro-Brexit vote, causing the Tories to lose office and be replaced by a government willing to hold a second referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union at all. So is Mr Farage endangering the very cause to which he has devoted his whole political life?
Nigel Farage's pre-eminent contribution to the campaign to get Britain out of the EU is beyond dispute. It was he who turned a fringe party, the United Kingdom Independence Party, UKIP, into a major force in British politics. Under his leadership UKIP soon posed a real threat to the Conservatives and this was central to the decision of the Tory Prime Minister, David Cameron, to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the EU. His aim was to win the referendum, close down the issue for the foreseeable future and see off the UKIP threat to the Conservative Party.
But that's not how it worked out. Mr Cameron lost the 2016 referendum, and although Mr Farage was kept out of the leadership of the main Leave campaign, it was he who had built the momentum that caused his side to win it.
Then, having resigned the leadership of UKIP and half-bowed-out of politics, he watched from the side-lines as the new Tory prime minister, Theresa May, botched the negotiations for Britain's withdrawal from the EU. The prospect of Brexit being thwarted by what he considered a bad deal was too much for him and he founded the Brexit Party to make sure that Brexit really did mean Brexit.
His party's humiliation of the Conservative Party in the European Parliament elections this summer confirmed the abiding force of Nigel Farage and he announced that in the forthcoming general election his new party would field candidates in six hundred seats across the country.
What he really wanted, though, was an electoral pact with the Tories. Constituencies would be divided between the two parties so that his party had a chance of winning seats that he claims the Tories could never win and so securing a strong pro-Brexit majority in the Commons. He even recruited his friend Donald Trump to advocate such a move. The American president said on Mr Farage's radio phone-in programme that if his friends Boris and Nigel got together they'd be unstoppable. But the Tories weren't having any of this. For one thing they feared that if they got too close to Mr Farage and his Brexit Party they would drive otherwise Tory-inclined Remain voters into the hands of the Liberal Democrats.
The dilemma facing Mr Farage as the election got underway was that if he persisted in standing in all six hundred seats he risked splitting the pro-Brexit vote and producing a House of Commons in which there might be a majority for a second referendum that might well reverse the decision of the first, losing Brexit altogether. So on Monday this week Mr Farage risked the wrath of many of his party's candidates, limbering up for the election fight, by announcing that those standing in seats currently held by the Conservatives – 317 of them – would be stood down to give the Tories a free run.
But although this move was applauded by many, including within the Brexit Party itself, he was criticised for not going far enough. He needed to withdraw his party from even more seats, they said, namely those seats that the Tories need to gain in order to win a majority.
The Conservative strategy for winning the election is clear enough. Boris Johnson knows that what is seen as his 'hard Brexit' policy alienates many pro-Remain or soft-Brexit Conservative voters many of whom will desert the Tories for other parties, especially the Liberal Democrats. This will result in the Conservatives losing seats they currently have. Since they start the election campaign with no majority at all, the loss of further seats means they have to gain even more new seats in order to win a majority.
The seats they have in their sights are Labour-held seats in Wales, the Midlands and the north of England which voted Leave in the referendum and where there is believed to be widespread disillusion with Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party. These are the seats the Tories vitally need to win but in which the Brexit Party is also standing and they are the seats Mr Farage was under strong pressure earlier this week to withdraw from too. But he refused.
His argument is that there are some 'Labour' seats the Tories have absolutely no chance ever of winning, so strong is the anti-Conservative sentiment in them. But, he claims, the Brexit Party could well steal them from Labour. What was needed was a pact in which the Tories would withdraw their candidates from those seats and the Brexit Party would withdraw in Labour marginals where the Tories do stand a chance. But the Tories continued to refuse.
Mr Farage said: 'I made a generous offer to the Conservative Party …. I just gifted them a couple of dozen seats and I did it because I believe in Leave. Now if they believed in Leave what they would do is stand aside in some seats in Labour areas where the Conservative Party has not won for 100 years and will never win. .. I would have expected, having put country before party, to perhaps have got something back from the Conservatives. But no, nothing is good enough for them.'
The Tory Party said: 'We don't do electoral pacts. … The only way to get Brexit done … is to vote for your local Conservative candidate'. And the party chairman, James Cleverly, said: 'I'm telling you that I have no truck with a pact or agreements. Nigel Farage has asked for one for months. We said no.'
Some of Mr Farage's strongest allies have said he should have acknowledged that the Tories were never going to agree to a pact and that he should have unilaterally withdrawn Brexit Party candidates from seats the Tories have a chance of taking from Labour for the greater good of the Brexit cause. Arron Banks, the billionaire who has financed many pro-Brexit campaigns (though Mr Farage insists he hasn't given a penny to the Brexit Party) said: 'Nigel reminds me of a gambler at a casino that's been winning all night and it's time to take the chips off the table and step away. What we are offering the geezer, as you might say, is Brexit.'
Mr Farage claims that people 'deep inside Number 10 Downing Street' have been offering Brexit party candidates jobs and inducements to stand down in key seats and that he and eight other senior figures in the Brexit Party have had the prospect of peerages offered them in return for doing so. He also claims his candidates have been deluged with thousands of phone calls, emails and even threats in order to get them to stand down, a claim Mr Cleverly says is 'completely unfounded'.
So, as we head into the last month of the campaign, it's clear that the Conservative and Brexit parties will be fighting each other in Labour seats one or other needs to win in order to secure a pro-Brexit majority in the next Parliament. If the result is that neither wins them and Boris Johnson's Tories yet again fall short of a majority then there is a real possibility that a government will emerge committed to holding a second referendum on British membership of the EU and that that referendum could result in Britain deciding to stay.
Is Mr Farage therefore risking the loss of the goal he has spent his entire political life trying to secure and which he is so close to achieving? Or was Boris Johnson wrong to refuse a pact with Mr Farage? Should Mr Farage have unilaterally backed down in the key seats once he saw a pact wasn't going to happen, or not? Do you think in the end it will matter that the two pro-Brexit parties are fighting each other in vital seats? And if you are pro-Brexit, who will you blame if the election produces an outcome that risks Brexit altogether?
Let us know what you think.


Below are tips on how to keep your home and family safe this summer.
Test your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, change batteries immediately if needed.
Check for overloaded or damaged extension cords, replace where needed.
Ensure you have an emergency preparedness kit in case of incidents such as power outages and flooding.
Recycle: Get rid of old newspapers, magazines and junk mail. These items tend to pile up and can greatly contribute to the severity and spread of fire.
Check and clean filters above stove.
Pull refrigerator out and vacuum or dust the coils.
Always keep stairs and landings clear for safe evacuation in event of an emergency.
Make sure your address numbers are up and visible from the street.
Maintain a clear 'fire zone' of 10' around structures.
Check outdoor electrical outlets and other electrical appliances for animal nests and to ensure proper wiring.
Keep 100' of garden hose with an attached nozzle connected and ready for use.
Remove leaves and trash from carports and garages: Combustible materials are dangerous if they are exposed to heated automobile components, especially under the vehicle.
Let power equipment sit for approximately 30 minutes before placing it inside to be sure there is no possibility of fire.
Some municipalities do not allow open air burning. Always check with your local fire department for questions, instructions and permits.
All barbeque grills must only be used outdoors — using grills indoors or in enclosed spaces is not only a fire hazard, but it exposes occupants to toxic gasses and potential asphyxiation.
Always position the grill well away from combustible objects — buildings, fences, deck railings and landscaping can easily and quickly ignite.
Always use long handled grilling utensils and heat resistant oven mitts to avoid exposure burns from heat and flames.
Periodically remove grease build-up in catch trays to prevent it from igniting.
Keep a garden hose nearby, connected and ready for use in case of a fire.


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You are here: Home » Business Ethics, Featured Story, Recent Stories, Regulation & Legislation » Drug Companies Pay Up in Illegal Marketing Cases, But Are Penalties Enough?
Drug Companies Pay Up in Illegal Marketing Cases, But Are Penalties Enough?
Posted by de-admin • May 5, 2016 • Printer-friendly
By Paul Feldman, Fairwarning
If you make truck deliveries in the overcrowded downtown streets of a big city, parking tickets might simply be a cost of doing business.
For top drug companies, critics say, there's an equivalent expense — the billions of dollars paid out to settle criminal and civil charges of illegal marketing practices, Medicaid overcharges and kickbacks.
Big Pharma has written more than $30 billion in checks in the last 10 years to resolve the government allegations, according to statistics compiled by the consumer watchdog group Public Citizen. Nine drug manufacturers each forked over at least $900 million from 2006 through 2015.
Yet those sums, Public Citizen says, are essentially petty cash for the drug giants. The advocacy group, which seeks stiffer sanctions against violators, says the settlements amount to less than 5 percent of the net profits raked in by the 11 largest global pharmaceuticals firms over a similar period.
"The financial rewards companies reap from engaging in these behaviors far outstrip any penalties they pay," said Harvard Medical School professor Eric G. Campbell, who researches doctors' conflicts of interest.
Treating fines as a cost of doing business, Campbell added, "truly appears to be the business model in marketing drugs."
GlaxoSmithKline headed the payout list for the decade, ponying up $7.628 billion, more than double that of runner-up Pfizer, at $3.458 billion, according to Public Citizen.
In the largest health fraud settlement in history, Glaxo pleaded guilty and paid $3 billion in 2012 to resolve criminal and civil charges of promoting Paxil and Wellbutrin for uses not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The government said Paxil, an anti-depressant, was unlawfully promoted to treat patients under age 18, while Wellbutrin, approved for major depressive disorder, was promoted for unapproved uses such as weight reduction and treatment of sexual dysfunction.
Thirty-one firms in the last quarter-century were repeaters, with two or more settlements. Glaxo and Pfizer again led the list, with each entering into 31 settlements with federal or state agencies since 1991, the research showed. Neither firm responded to requests for comment.
What's known as off-label marketing – promoting drugs for uses other than those approved by the FDA – dominates the list of settlements. While doctors can legally prescribe pills for off-label use, drug companies can't push medicines for such purposes.
Some of the biggest prosecutions, however, involved drug companies that engaged in extravagant efforts to market their wares to physicians, hospitals and nursing homes for off-label uses. In some cases, anti-psychotics approved by the FDA to treat patients with schizophrenia were instead promoted to control the behavior of elderly dementia patients.
And some doctors prescribed the drugs after being plied with kickbacks, consulting deals and other favors from the drug industry. "We think not enough has been done to prosecute doctors and hold them accountable for egregious activities," said Dr. Sammy Almashat, lead author of a recent Public Citizen report on drug industry settlements.
In one of the biggest health fraud settlements, Johnson & Johnson agreed in 2013 to pay $2.2 billion to resolve a case involving allegations that it conducted off-label marketing of the anti-psychotic Risperdal to doctors treating elderly dementia patients. The Department of Justice, in its criminal complaint, said the drug "increased risk of death among elderly dementia patients." The department said Johnson & Johnson also played down, or fudged, findings that the drug raised the risk of strokes and diabetes.
Since 1991, unlawful promotion cases have accounted for about $11 billion of a total of more than $35 billion in civil and criminal settlements — far more than the payouts for overcharges to government health programs, kickbacks or monopoly practices.
After reaching a peak of $6.35-billion in 2012, settlements have fallen. Public Citizen's report cites, as possible reasons, a shift in the focus of prosecutions and free speech court rulings involving drug marketing. In one of those cases, a drug manufacturer won a preliminary injunction after suing the FDA, claiming that restrictions on off-label promotion clashed with its First Amendment rights.
In addition, given that patents have expired on some of the anti-psychotic medicines that were the subject of major off-label marketing lawsuits, marketing of those drugs was bound to dwindle. "The companies have no motivation to sell them [any more], even for their indicated uses," said Dr. Lon S. Schneider, a psychiatry professor at the University of Southern California medical school.
Harvard professor Campbell says another factor may be the recent spotlight on doctors and researchers who in the past accepted free vacations, martini-soaked dinners and other swag from drug companies.
In 2009, ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization, launched a "Dollars for Docs" database. The data largely reflected disclosures that drug companies were required to make under settlements stemming from improper marketing allegations. A federal Sunshine Act followed, requiring more companies to publicly disclose payments to doctors. The information is available on this searchable database.
"There has definitely been an increase in interest in this by the media," Campbell said. He added that he believes the news coverage spurred some doctors and institutions to reject, or discourage, payments from drug companies.
Almashat said that while "sensational stories of doctors being wined and dined" by drug companies have declined, prosecutors need to remain vigilant about "much more subtle and sophisticated" means for influencing physicians. He pointed to hefty fees paid by the companies to doctors for consulting work or speaking engagements.
Suffolk University law professor Marc A. Rodwin, who has written on drug company sanctions, says one solution might be charging drug company officials personally, so that they could face fines or even criminal misdemeanor counts. He added, however, "there seems to be a reluctance of prosecutors to act" against corporate officers.
FairWarning is a nonprofit news organization based in Los Angeles that focuses on public health, safety and environmental issues.
Docs on Pharma Payroll Have Blemished Records
GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novartis Top Access to Medicine Report
Drug Industry Lobbyists and Campaign Cash Stymie Bid to Restrain Medicare Prescription Costs
Doctors Avoid Penalties in Suits Against Medical Firms
GSK to Pay $750 Million Fine; Whistleblower to Get $96 Million
Tagged as: Department of Justice, Drugs, GlaxoSmithKline, Harvard Medical School, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Public Citizen
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Turkey, ham, bacon, cheese, lettuce, and tomato. Served with french fries or onion rings.
Served with choice of bacon, ham, or sausage and hot biscuit and gravy or toast.
Served with a choice of hot biscuit and gravy or toast.
Three eggs with the choice of bacon, ham, sausage, and two pancakes.
Choose your meat. Served with two eggs.
Two hot biscuits smothered with sausage gravy.
Served with home fries and refried beans. No substitutions.
Chopped steak topped with brown gravy and grilled onions. Served with a dinner roll and two sides.
Seasoned centered cut pork chop. Served with a dinner roll and two sides.
Tendered seasoned boneless breast. Served with a dinner roll and two sides.
Golden chicken strips (4) served with cream gravy. Served with a dinner roll and two sides.
Served with garlic butter. Served with a dinner roll and two sides.
10 oz Steak cooked to your desire. Served with a dinner roll and two sides.
Boneless Breaded Chicken with cream gravy on the side. Served with a dinner roll and two sides.
Boneless chicken breaded with pecans and gravy on the side. Served with a dinner roll and two sides.
With Swiss cheese and grilled onions. Served with french fries or onion rings.
Bacon, lettuce, and tomato on Texas toast. Served with french fries or onion rings.
Boneless chicken breast, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, and onion. Served with french fries or onion rings.
Lettuce and tomatoes. Served with french fries or onion rings.
Soup of the day. Call restaurant for details at (972) 875-1556.
Your choice of 3 vegetables.
Please call (972) 875-1556 to inquire about the daily special.


Open House: Our annual Open House is coming up next week. It is Wednesday, September 26, 2018. There are two sessions: Kindergarten and Grade 1 parents are from 6:00-7:00; Grades 2 and 3 parents are from 7:15-8:15. This is an opportunity to hear from your child's teacher about what occurs on the classroom. Children should not be joining us. Prior to going to the classroom, Mr. Callahan will give a short presentation in the cafeteria at 6:00 and 7:15.
Book Clubs: Throughout the year, Mrs. Greene and Mrs. Sanchez have family book clubs. Please see the attachment below which provides you with information about our book clubs. Also attached below is information about our first book club for second grade. Our second graders and their families are welcome to join us on October 18 right after school for our first book club. Choose either Lola Levine is Not Mean or Alvin Ho, Allergic to Girls, School and Other Scary Things Click here to register.
School Pictures: October 4 is picture day here at Sowams. Weather permitting, pictures will be taken outside. More information about pictures will be sent home.
Octoberfest: Our PTO fundraiser will be here before you know it. October 13 is the big day. Over the next week or two, you will receive more information about volunteering, Silent Auction, and other ways you can help.
Volunteer Orientation: There is a new volunteer orientation on September 24 at 9:00 in the morning here at Sowams. Any new volunteers need to go through this training. Questions can be directed to Anita DiMatteo at dimatteoa@barringtonschools.org.
Lunch and Learn: Lunch and Learn is an opportunity for our students to hear from other adults about their careers, hobbies, or passions. We need volunteers who are willing to come in and share this during lunch with our students. Our students volunteer to attend these presentations in order to learn about the various things our community members do and love. In the past, we have had different types of doctors, police officers, fire fighters, astronauts, journalists (print and television), toy designers, SCUBA divers, photographers, and many other presenters. If you are interested in participating in this, you may sign up here. Questions can be directed to Mrs. Sanchez at sanchezc@barringtonschools.org.
Sowams Speedway: Our Speedway needs volunteers. Speedway is our mileage club that students may participate in three days a week during recess. We are looking for volunteers who are able to be here for one, two, or three days a week from 12:00-12:45. You must have a current background check on file with the school department in order to volunteer. If you are interested in volunteering or have other questions, you can contact Bronwyn Ellis at ellisbronwyn@gmail.com.


This weekly learning plan template is used to list the experiences the children will participate in during the week.
The Weekly Learning Plan template enables Educators to detail the activities and experienced the children will engage in throughout the week. It follows a play based learning approach which enables the children to make sense of the world around them.


Lisa Faulkner samples holiday rentals of all shapes and sizes around the country, including the more unusual such as our Safari tents down on the Lizard peninsula, Cornwall.
Holiday Home Sweet Home is midway through the series and this Saturdays programme features us setting up our luxury glamping site here at Chymder Farm. It will be good to look back and to see how far we have come since the filming took place in early summer with challenging weather, did we really have a summer? With log stoves and cosy duvets, who cares what the weather does!


Soup to Tomatoes is a series of chair based exercise classes available online free of charge to anyone with internet access to join at any time and done individually. Group classes bring older adults Soup to Tomatoes is a series of chair based exercise classes available online free of charge to anyone with internet access to join at any time and done individually. Group classes bring older adults together to exercise in some communities for 6 week sessions.


AMAZON'S CURRENT HEADQUARTERS: Seattle has experienced annual housing price increases much higher than the national average.
Not all metropolitan areas have enough housing capacity to absorb a second Amazon HQ.
Amazon's plans for HQ2 include 50,000 future employees and eight million square feet of office space.
Employment growth from Amazon's HQ2 will put upwards pressure on housing costs.
In fact, Seattle, the location of Amazon's current headquarters, has experienced average annual housing price increases of 10.3 percent from 2012 to 2017, much higher than the 6.2-percent national average.
The report places the 19 US finalists—the complete list also includes Toronto—into four categories.
Recently gentrifying – and griping. Areas like Denver, Nashville, Austin, and Raleigh "are already struggling with higher housing costs—and are pushing back against perceived gentrifiers," said the report. Amazon's HQ2 would be as welcome as a tidal wave for many of these cities' residents.
Stable, growth-friendly. Atlanta, Chicago, Columbus, and Dallas have stable housing markets that have accommodated population growth and lack the onerous regulations of Northeast and West Coast cities. They also have ample suitable office space downtown (except Columbus). "This group offers the highest likelihood of absorbing HQ2 with relatively minimal disruption to the existing housing market," concludes the report.


text:
Camponotus limbiventris is een mierensoort uit de onderfamilie van de schubmieren (Formicinae). De wetenschappelijke naam van de soort is voor het eerst geldig gepubliceerd in 1911 door Santschi.

Camponotus

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


THE MIAMI HEAT defeated the Toronto Raptors 108-91 last night to extend their winning streak to 22 games.
LeBron James ran the show on St Patrick's Day as he scored 22 points, claimed 12 rebounds and chipped in with eight assists.
The Heat are now joint-second in the all-time winning streak list but are still 11 triumphs short of the 33 mark set by the L.A Lakers in the 1971/72 season.
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