Wyoming Senator John Barrasso said on Friday he would oppose President Biden’s candidate for the Bureau of Land Management over his early ties to “eco-terrorists,” referring to his stint with the group radical environmental Earth First!

Tracy Stone-Manning, Mr Biden’s choice for the post of director of BLM, was affiliated with the eco-sabotage group three decades ago while studying at the University of Montana, as a Editor-in-chief of the group’s “radical environmental journal” and testifying during a tree pricking test.

“Tracy Stone-Manning has collaborated with eco-terrorists,” Barrasso, the leading Republican on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement to the Washington Times.

“She worked with extreme environmental activists who planted trees, threatening the lives and livelihoods of loggers,” he said. “While she was granted immunity from prosecution to testify against her companions in court, her actions were outrageous. This clearly disqualifies her from the position of the next director of the Bureau of Land Management.”

Her opposition comes from Republicans who are concerned about her background as an activist as well as a loan of $ 50,000 to $ 100,000 she received in 2008 while working for Senator Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana. , and which she finished repaying in 2020.

Kansas Republican Senator Roger Marshall identified the lender as Democratic donor and Montana developer Stuart Goldberg and asked if she was getting “special treatment” with the 6% interest rate, significantly lower than the 11% charged on average at the time for personal consumer loans.

The Times has contacted Ms Stone-Manning for comment.

Ms Stone-Manning, 55, has a top-notch resume in the Montana public service – she served as chief of staff to Montana Governor Steve Bullock and headed the State Department for Environmental Quality – But she got her start in environmental activism with Earth First !, a radical collective associated with civil disobedience, direct action and industrial sabotage.

The group was co-founded in 1980 by Dave Foreman, an activist the FBI arrested in 1990 on charges relating to a conspiracy to target a power line tower in Arizona. He said he was not involved but pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and did not serve any jail time, according to the Aspen Daily News.

Ms Stone-Manning’s involvement appeared to last about three years: she said in court testimony that she joined the group in 1988 and in the June 1991 edition of Earth First! journal, which features a wrench and hammer on the masthead, listed her as an editor.

During the 1993 Idaho conspiracy trial, she said she met several men who were later accused of driving metal spikes into trees, known as tree stings, to disrupt a timber sale in the city. Clearwater National Forest near Powell, Idaho.

One of the men, John Blount, asked him in April 1989 to send an anonymous letter to the Forest Service warning them that 500 pounds of bridge points had been driven into the trees.

In her testimony in court, she said that she took the letter and re-typed it on a typewriter she rented from the university, changing some spelling mistakes and removing some profanity, and then typing it out. posted a few days after receiving it.

Why post it?

“Because I wanted people to know that these trees were spiky. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt from the hanging trees, ”she said in the court transcript.

When asked why she had retyped it, Ms. Stone-Manning replied that she had done it because “I didn’t want it on my personal computer.”

According to the 1993 Associated Press report, two of the men, Arvid E. Hartley and Neil K. McLain, pleaded guilty to tying trees and agreed to testify against three others, including Mr. Blount.

In a 2013 interview with the Missoulian, Ms Stone-Manning gave more details, claiming that after Mr Blount handed her the letter, she realized that “now my fingerprints were all over the place.”

“The easy thing to do would have been to burn that letter and go away and not be associated with it, but it was not the right thing to do because the trees were spiky and someone could be injured when the loggers were sent, ”she said. . “So I posted the letter.”

The retyped letter from “George Hayduke” stated that 11 people were involved in tree planting and that the “sales were marked so that no worker was injured”, adding that he would pay them $ 1 for the tree planting. sale, but “you would like to have to find me first and this could be your WORST nightmare.”

During the trial, Ms Stone-Manning said she was not aware of other incidents related to tree planting, although Earth First! did not hide his sympathies for eco-sabotage.

In his book, “Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching”, Mr. Foreman described “the correct way to plant a tree and explains why, when taking a bulldozer out of service, pouring sand into its tank. gasoline is much more effective than pouring sugar “. the Los Angeles Times reported in 1990.

Mr Foreman later pointed out that the technique was aimed at stopping logging, not harming people, after California lumberjack George Alexander was seriously injured in 1987 when a bandsaw struck a sharp point embedded in it. a log. The shattered blade flew away, hitting him on the head and cutting his face.

Earth first of June 1991! The newspaper Ms. Stone-Manning is listed on includes a cartoon about planting trees and an advertisement for t-shirts featuring the slogan “Not a tree more” with a spike running through it.

The post, published on the Environment and Society portal, also includes a disclaimer: “Although we do not accept the authority of the hierarchical state, nothing here is intended to challenge us. his police power. “

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing Tuesday on the appointment of Ms. Stone-Manning as head of the agency, which oversees 245 million acres of federal land primarily in the West.

She was introduced by Mr. Tester, who called her a “proven leader with experience working across the aisle to get things done”.

Sunwest Bank, a $ 2 billion asset bank based in Irvine, Calif., On Wednesday launched a new account opening portal, a feature it says will help it expand its portfolio of customers and compete with fintechs by offering online account opening to its business customers.

Dwight Flenniken, the bank’s chief marketing officer, said its Sunwest New Account Portal (SNAP) is extending the same technology to its business customers that is already available to its retail customers, allowing them to open accounts entirely remotely.

The new portal also allows Sunwest Bank, which derives the majority of its deposits and loans from its commercial banking unit, to expand its services to commercial clients outside of the four states where it has a physical presence, Flenniken said. .

The bank operates approximately 12 branches and loan production offices in California, Arizona, Utah and Idaho.

“We have a good company and we are a commercial bank that people trust,” said Flenniken. “So we’re looking at states like New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, Oregon, and Nevada. We thought that, to expand our portfolio, this digital effort would be a good way to let people know. to the people that we ‘you are here. “

The portal was built entirely in-house, Flenniken said, and allows business owners to create multiple accounts and account types at once, add authorized account signers, as well as order checks and scanners. checks.

“We noticed that other banks weren’t doing it, and that we saw all the fintechs come and go into space, and we thought it would be beneficial to have a brick and mortar bank in which people trust to enter space, ”said Flenniken.

Challenger banks such as Lance, BlueVine and Lili are targeting the entrepreneurial and small business market by offering accounts that can be opened entirely online, which Sunwest Bank Chairman Carson Lappetito has said is lagging behind in the market. traditional banking sector.

“This technology is readily available for consumer accounts, but only a handful of banks nationally offer it for commercial accounts,” he said in a statement. “Our top priority at Sunwest Bank is giving entrepreneurs the resources to succeed, and our clients can now open accounts from the comfort of their office, home or on the go. “

Flenniken said the bank’s decision to launch the new portal was in part inspired by its involvement in the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) over the past year and a half. The bank made 3,699 PPP loans totaling more than $ 927 million.

“We have far outstripped ourselves, in terms of size, in the number of PPP loans we have given to consumers. And we have noticed that they come from all over the place, all over the country, and in particular the western states. -United, ”he said. “So we wanted to launch this product to give these people the ability to do banking with us.”

As the bank seeks to grow its commercial accounts through digital expansion, Flenniken said Sunwest still believes a physical presence is important.

“We think fintech is great, and we think the wave of the future is being able to be on someone’s computer or phone, giving them the ability to create their accounts and manage their portfolios online,” did he declare. “We also believe there is a huge space for relationships.”

The bank’s goal, said Flenniken, is to offer its customers digital functionality in combination with in-person services through its branches.

“We’re going to have to have both, I think everyone has to have both. Fintechs are great, but I don’t think fintechs will ever have both. There is a little disconnect between what we do and what we do. what fintechs do, ”he said.

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) – Presidential candidate Joe Biden to oversee large swathes of public land in the western United States was criticized Tuesday by Republicans for her past involvement in partisan politics as a Democratic aide and environmentalist in long time.

Tracy Stone-Manning, who worked as chief of staff to former Montana governor Steve Bullock, has been appointed as director of the United States Bureau of Land Management. The agency has jurisdiction over 245 million acres (100 million hectares) of federally owned land in the western states, managing it for uses ranging from fossil fuel extraction and grazing to recreation.

Senate confirmation of Stone-Manning would mark a sea change for an agency that handled oil and gas interests under former President Donald Trump.

She would take the helm after the office suffered turmoil in recent years when it lost nearly 300 employees to retire or resign after its headquarters moved from Washington, DC to Grand Junction, Colo., Under Trump.

In a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing Tuesday, Republicans lambasted Stone-Manning for her role as treasurer and board member of the Montana Conservation Voters group, which ran announcements against Republican Senator from Montana Steve Daines in the last election cycle. Republicans have also voiced concerns that it will hamper energy development.

“You’ve been incredibly partisan in your past,” said Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. “It seems like in your heart you really don’t care about Republicans.”

Stone-Manning, from Missoula, said his now deceased Republican parents “would be in their graves” because of the allegation of partisanship. She indicated that she wanted to pass a 2020 election in which Daines fought off a challenge from Bullock, and added that working collaboratively was the only way to move forward in the controversial debates on public lands in the West.

“Elections can be difficult. I supported my old boss, Governor Bullock. But the election is over, and I will honor the outcome of this election, ”she said.

Democratic Senator John Hickenlooper asked Stone-Manning about the head office move, which he said was “done in a hurry” and left land office workers and Grand Junction residents who had hoped the change would boost the city’s economy.

Stone-Manning said the Home Office was looking into the matter but gave no further details.

After leaving Bullock’s staff in 2017, Stone-Manning led the efforts of the National Wildlife Federation to preserve public lands in the West for wildlife, hiking, hunting, and other non-industrial uses.

She previously worked as an assistant to Democratic Montana Senator Jon Tester and for a nonprofit group that worked to clean up one of the largest contaminated Superfund sites in the country, Clark Fork River in Montana. Tester, who introduced Stone-Manning at Tuesday’s hearing, dismissed the GOP’s description of her as an ideologue.

“He’s a good person with a good heart who understands the value of our public lands,” Tester said.

Kansas Republican Senator Roger Marshall asked Stone-Manning if she had a conflict of interest in receiving a personal loan of $ 50,000 to $ 100,000 in 2008 while working for the staff at Tester. Financial disclosure documents showed she received the 12-year loan from Missoula developer Stuart Goldberg at an interest rate of 6%, which Marshall said was lower than the going rate of 11% for loans. for consumption at the time.

Stone-Manning replied that she had been “hit by the recession and a friend lent us money to make sure we could get out of it.”

“We have honored the loan,” she added.

The post of director of the land management office went unfilled for four years under Trump, who instead relied on a series of interim directors to execute an easing of restrictions on the industry. Chief among them was Conservative lawyer William Perry Pendley, who, before taking office, advocated the sale of federal lands.

Pendley was removed from his post by a federal judge after leading the office for over a year without the required Senate confirmation and being sued by Bullock.

Stone-Manning supported the effort to oust Pendley and said he was an illegally named person.

She would serve under Home Secretary Deb Haaland, a former Democratic congresswoman from New Mexico who was confirmed by opposition Republicans citing her criticism of the oil and gas industry.

The white hieroglyphics that descend from the mustang’s big brown neck and the necks of all horses like it tell part of the story – if you can crack the code.

The big “U” with the particular crossbars is easy. It’s for the US government. The small equal sign with a flattened “V” below translates to 0-7, the year of birth of the 14-year-old horse.

The next two symbols are where it gets good. The flattened “V” and the “L” towards the back indicate 7-6, revealing that this horse was rounded up somewhere in Oregon.

Maybe it was Beatys Butte, or Murderer’s Creek or Riddle Mountain, or a dozen other herd management areas in the state, all types of rugged western land where we imagine mustangs roaming free with swept manes. by the wind.

What you probably don’t imagine when you think of wild horses are the flat, green, mossy oaks of Webster in Florida, where the Wild Horse Rescue Center spans over 30 shaded acres.

This is where Pinto the Oregon Mustang arrived recently, skinny and scared, after being rescued from an “auction” in Louisiana.

The founder and president of the Wild Horse Rescue Center, Diane Delano, has dedicated her life for several decades to working with the mustangs, the free range horses managed and protected by the Bureau of Land Management as “living symbols of the historical spirit. and pioneer of the West ”.

She began by adopting wild mustangs directly from the government, but eventually focused on rescuing mustangs that were abused or destined for slaughter. She likes to say that horses come to her center “to heal themselves” more than any training.

Each horse is given a new name, said Delano, “because that old name is your past.” This is how Amigo became Pinto.

Last week, Delano, whose calm gray eyes are offset by turquoise earrings to match the turquoise chain from which his glasses dangle, entered a corral where Pinto was standing in a corner. She put her hand on the nervous horse’s neck, and when she stepped back, Pinto followed her.

“I did energetic work on him yesterday, and I think he remembers it,” she said. “We do craniosacral massage therapy, acupuncture, energy work, Reiki. My horses are getting all of these holistic things.

Horses that come to the wild also receive many months of traditional training. Some will learn to tolerate a saddle and become perfect for riding. Thor, who was rescued from the same auction as Pinto (and got the name because of his blonde mane), could soon become an MP if an upcoming visit to a South Florida sheriff’s office goes well. .

Others, like Pinto, will end up being gentle enough to make nice pets, but maybe not for riding.

There are over 50 horses at the center in various stages of preparation for adoption. Over the years, said Delano, she has trained and found homes for more than 1,000 of them. Horses that cannot be trained or adopted stay indefinitely.

But there are always more mustangs to take, even though the money to do so has been a little harder to come by since the pandemic struck.

Mustangs are the descendants of various breeds of horses that have escaped or been abandoned for hundreds of years, starting with the horses brought to America by the Spanish conquistadors in the 1400s.

After coming under federal protection in the 1970s, a once declining wild horse population rapidly multiplied. So quickly that the herds, which grow by around 20% a year if left unchecked, have left the Bureau of Land Management to scramble.

Today, it is estimated that there are approximately 70,000 wild mustangs in the West, spread across Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming. That’s far more than the 27,000 horsepower the office estimates the environment can support.

To manage the population, the office assembles thousands of wild mustangs each year using helicopters, then makes these horses available for adoption.

But the value of a wild mustang as a symbol of freedom and beauty in the popular imagination – so iconic that an iconic American automobile of all time took its name – is at odds with the tangible value of a wild and wild horse without pedigree.

“Mustangs are basically mutts,” Delano said.

Training them in the type of horse people want to own takes a lot of time and effort. First, mustangs were cheap to adopt, and then the office started paying people $ 1,000 to adopt them.

A New York Times article published earlier this month described how horses adopted under this office program then ended up abandoned in auctions frequented by slaughterhouse buyers.

Each rounded mustang is marked on its neck with a series of symbols, marking it as a mustang, which should protect it.

“But that’s not the case,” Delano said.

Another rescue organization paid over $ 800 to buy Pinto at auction before sending it to Florida.

Delano is considering how the government could better manage the horse population, but remains primarily focused on saving as many Mustangs as possible in a broken system.

“We are focused on the future of these horses,” she said. “And do it with a touch of healing.”

The center was quiet. Once wild mustangs Max, an 8-year-old gray boy from Muddy Gap, Wyoming, and Cortez, an 8-year-old dark bay gathered in Nevada, huddled lovingly in a corral. Both are ready for adoption.

Hope, Faith and Promise, three once emaciated mustangs whose rescue was reported in the Tampa Bay Times 13 years ago, were chewing hay, appearing healthy.

The pandemic has derailed the international program of the Wild Horse Rescue Center. Normally, Delano has a dozen European paying customers at any given time, mostly young people who want to travel and work with horses for a few weeks to a few months.

Delano made up for the loss of income with loans, over $ 100,000 of them, and made up for the lack of people to help around the center with enthusiastic retired volunteers from the villages.

Debra Wyland brushed Ford, a 10-year-old resident at the center, in a barn. Ed Martin filled waterers. Jorge Pousa rode Pegasus around a ring. All three showed up after seeing a brief article about the center in the Villages Daily Sun and kept coming back for months.

Wyland had never been around horses in her life, except for the little horse statues which had briefly obsessed her as a child.

“When I was in kindergarten, I had a pair of red cowboy boots that I wanted to wear every day,” Wyland said. Today, at 56, she is finally learning to ride a horse.

Pousa, 60, had spent some time with horses as a teenager at a stable near her hometown of Miami. Then came a long career in the Navy, where he worked in logistics.

“Now I’m retired and can get my horse fix,” Pousa said. “I clear the stalls, then I can play. It’s like therapy. Horses can read you as well as you can read them.

Martin, 77, was from Boston. He was another “city dweller” who had never been around horses. He was just bored at home.

“There is always a lot to do here,” said Delano. A horse snorted.

I never really knew I wanted to go to South America until I got there.

The day begins

My biggest expense was food, trying to eat 4000-6000 calories per day.

The journey continues

The journey ends

I am looking at a map now and I have the impression that my neighbors are in Colombia or Mexico.

Char-Koosta News

RONAN – Sariel Sandoval, a member of the CSKT tribe who graduated from Ronan High School, has been admitted to the University of California-Berkeley Engineering School, but the school does not provide scholarships / grants to overseas students. which affects their ability to attend. On May 21, the determined student launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds so she could enroll in college this fall.

Sandoval is the daughter of Cristen Morigeau-TwoTeeth and Antoine Sandoval. She was born and raised on the Flathead Indian Reservation and is Bitterroot Salish and Dine ‘. She graduated from Ronan High School on May 30 and was recently admitted to the University of California-Berkeley to study Engineering: Mathematics / Statistics and is considering a double major or minor in Native American Studies.

She spoke on important issues such as cultural appropriation, missing and murdered indigenous women, Indian education for all and the privilege of dismantling for speeches and debates where she placed second in State, third national qualifications. She is a Tribal Health Community Leader, HOOPA Mountain Indigenous scholar from Promins, and participates in We Are the Youth Of Montana vs. MT State where she provides the Indigenous perspective on how Montana affects climate change.

Berkeley is the perfect college for Sandoval’s future goals and she intends to return to help her people, tribe and community.

Unfortunately, the University of California school system does not provide funding for out-of-state, only in-state students, and the amount of loans it could take out is not even the quarter of the cost price. . After finding out this information, most told Sandoval to go to a public school for less money because she couldn’t afford Berkeley. She and her mom talked about it and she came to the conclusion that she could at least try to fundraise through scholarships and things she said. She always sends out scholarship applications, but feels like not everything she gets will cover the cost.

Sandoval said it would cost her $ 69,022 for a year in school and the scholarships she got would not cover the full cost. So far, she has received scholarships from the CSKT Higher Ed, the Elouise Cobell Scholarship and the Ronan Women’s Club. Some scholarship deadlines were at the end of May, but many deadlines passed before she knew she had been accepted at Berkely. She said many scholarships she had applied for were for specific schools and public schools.

The GoFundMe campaign came about because she said she saw someone else who was also going to Berkeley to raise $ 60,000 and her mother suggested she think about it.

Although the school does not provide scholarships / grants for out of state students, Sandoval is determined to achieve her goals and her gaze is on Berkley. As of this week, the campaign has reached $ 16,500 of its goal of $ 50,000.

Sandoval plans to live on campus and has applied to Berkeley Native American Theme House. The House is an on-campus residential program that seeks to nurture the future of Indigenous leaders.

The GoFundMe campaign can be accessed here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-send-sariel-to-berkeley-engineering

Subscribers to The Climate Crisis newsletter have received this article in their inbox. Sign up to receive future payments.

If you want to meet an expert who understands where the world is heading, may I introduce a bushy-bearded Australian coal miner who appears anonymously in a video shared by the Sydney Morning messenger Last week. He is sitting behind the wheel of a borrowed Tesla when a man in the backseat asks him to ‘crash’ it. As hard as it gets. The man throws his fist on the accelerator, is immediately pushed back into his seat and laughs. “Damn, I want it, eh?” said the man. “It’s just instant. Like, damn, ”the driver replies, beaming. (Watch it, you will feel happier afterwards).

Many of the changes needed to get us on the right climate path are going to meet resistance, but it starts to look like getting people to accept EVs may not be one of them. Elon Musk did a pioneering job, but the Tesla was mostly a niche product, with the niche being the first to embrace cool things that live along the coastlines. (Life in Muskworld is getting a little silly: Last month it started touting a model with ten rocket boosters that will go from zero to sixty in 1.1 seconds, which seems like a really bad idea.) became very real, however, with the announcement last month of an electric version of the Ford F-150 pickup, the best-selling vehicle in the United States every year since the Reagan administration and the motor vehicle most popular of all time. In seven days, the company had reported seventy thousand preorders and inventory had jumped eight percent.

Having spent most of my life in rural America, where the F-150 is ubiquitous, I can tell you why this is going to be successful. It is not the acceleration; it’s the caps. The electric version will essentially be a battery on wheels. The “electric frunk” (where the motor was located) has several outlets, useful for any power tools you might need if you’re not near another power source – if you’re building a house, say – and replace the noise, smelly and dangerous gas generators that no one likes. You say most pickup drivers aren’t, in fact, home builders? That’s right, most Americans don’t need a pickup at all. But look at any truck ad and see who it features. Once blue collar America approves the electric approach, the suburbs will follow suit. We need more than just electric cars, of course: buses and bikes, not to mention the tracks for these bikes, are crucial. But since, today, public transit accounts for about one percent of passenger kilometers traveled, the new pickup paradigm seems essential.

And, in any event, the automakers seem very much in the game. Ford last week announced it was cutting $ 30 billion in new spending on electric vehicles; General Motors has already said it will be nothing but electric by 2035. In contrast, the banking industry seems determined to have it both ways, trying to make money from fossil fuels and of a renewable future. Late last month, President Biden issued an executive order on financial climate risk that begins by noting that “the failure of financial institutions to appropriately and adequately consider and measure these physical and transitional risks threatens the competitiveness of US businesses and markets, lifelong economies. and the pensions of American workers and families, and the ability of American financial institutions to serve communities. This failure has been visible on many fronts in recent days. Deutsche Bank has presented a detailed plan to reduce its carbon emissions, for example by reducing “the fuel consumption of its company car fleet in Germany (around 5,400 cars) by 30% by 2025”.

That sounds good, but, as activists from the German environmental and human rights organization Urgewald have pointed out, such proposals “are also embarrassing testimony to the fact that the bank’s design in terms of sustainability is stuck in the 90s. The measures are easy to integrate and do not harm anyone. However, neither will they have a significant impact “- not, say, like the bank’s plan to coordinate the IPO of oil and gas group Wintershall, which plans to increase its production by 30%. fossil fuels. by 2023. Closer to home, the world’s largest fossil fuel financier, JPMorgan Chase, announced plans reduce not the amount of carbon that its loans release from the ground but rather the “carbon intensity” of its portfolio. This would allow it to continue to lend to companies that wish to continue producing the same amount of oil and would also allow it to significantly increase the amount of natural gas they pump; gas is a little less carbon intensive than oil, so this increase would go through this loophole. At a House Financial Services Committee hearing last week, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did his best to eliminate this blatant greenwashing, and Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Chase, appeared to say that the bank is also working to reduce absolute emissions from its portfolio, but at the moment the plans are under wraps. If you’re wondering how much that matters: A new report shows that the carbon produced by UK bankers’ loans alone would make it, if they were a country, the ninth emitter on the planet.

This is good news of a kind that is suddenly in abeyance: the fallout from the various court rulings and shareholder votes at the end of May is less a plan for the future than a mere recognition that something needs to change. Sticks are stuck in hornet nests, and there are screams from the industry and its friends. (Check out the fifteen GOP state treasurers threatening to withdraw state funds from banks that do not lend to the oil industry.) But, at least for now, the delighted laughter of a miner driving an EV muffles the noise.

Pass the microphone

Ana Teresa Fernández, artist born in Mexico and now based in San Francisco, specializes in what she calls “social sculpture”. I was struck by his recent project “On the Horizon”: transparent tubes, erected on the beach and filled with salt water, which attempt to show passers-by what the six-foot elevation of the level of the sea would actually look like. sea ​​that scientists are projecting. But all of her work is fascinating, and I was grateful that she agreed to answer a few questions. (Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.)

Explain those remarkable tubes that you installed on the beach. Where did this thought come from and what was the reaction?

In 2017, I was invited to speak at the Art + Environment conference at the Nevada Museum of Art, where I first discovered this information: “Sea level will rise 6 feet into the 50’s. coming years. This news struck my guts first, then continued to resonate with me. I know we hear numbers, but often we don’t feel what it means. This is where I got the idea of ​​trying to hang six feet of water in an attempt to create a visceral experience. First of all, how can we suspend so much water? Second, how do you get it to rise from the shore? And how do you create it in a way that makes people want to know more? This is how “À l’Horizon” was born. After I made the first design of the ten-inch-wide, six-foot-tall Plexi tube, I partnered with Doniece Sandoval, the founder of LavaMae, to fundraise to create an interactive experience by making sixteen of these tubes. “On the horizon” would be mobile and transported to different shores and threatened coasts.

While refining the design, we tested a single tube at different ranges. Each time, people were immediately drawn to her. When we tested it out at Ocean Beach, San Francisco, a group of five little girls whirled, danced and played around for an hour, inundating us with questions. When we explained that it was the height of our future coastline, their mouths were gaping. When their parents approached us, it was the girls who answered their questions about the play. It was then that we knew that this play was intergenerational.

In April, a new FCC filing hinted at the development of an intriguing new addition to the IKEA-Sonos Symfonisk line: a hidden speaker that can serve as a work of art. Now, The edge spotted a listing for an unannounced Symfonisk “photo frame with WiFi speaker” on the IKEA website. While the page is no longer available, it showed a product in black or white priced at $ 199 and designed to blend in with your home decor like other products in the line.

Depending on its description, you can hang it on its own, put it on the floor, or lean it against a wall. Although it’s called a “photo frame,” it doesn’t look like you can use it to display physical or digital images. It does, however, have “interchangeable fronts” that fit the frame, so you can probably find one that matches your style. The speaker comes with support for Airplay 2, which lets you play media directly from iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It is also compatible with Spotify Connect, can be bundled with two or more Symfonisk speakers and can be controlled by the Sonos app.

The companies have yet to announce when the WiFi-connected photo frame speaker will be available, but the fact that the list has been released means it could be released soon. If you’re impatient to get one, you might want to clear a space on your wall that would be suitable for something 22 inches high, 16 inches wide, and 2 inches deep.

Bloomberg

Malaysian assets plummet after government imposes full lockdown

(Bloomberg) – Malaysian stocks fell and the ringgit weakened after the government imposed a two-week nationwide lockdown to curb a relentless spike in Covid-19 infections. The FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI index fell by 1.6% Monday, before stabilizing. losses at 0.7% at the close in Kuala Lumpur. The ringgit slipped 0.4% to 4.1480 per dollar, while 10-year bond yields rose three basis points to 3.25%. The government said on Friday that most businesses would be closed from June 1, except for key sectors of the economy and services. “The government is finally biting the bullet,” said Alexander Chia, analyst at RHB Investment Bank Bhd. risk to earnings growth of FY21, although this is essentially a postponement of growth to FY22. Malaysia’s return to a hard lockdown comes on the heels of record daily infections that saw the number of cases surpass 9,000 on Saturday. A resurgence of virus outbreaks in Asia has prompted some countries, including Vietnam and Singapore, to tighten restrictions. A similar lockdown in Malaysia last year cost the country around 63 billion ringgit ($ 15 billion). Vietnam has tightened social distancing measures in Ho Chi Minh City for 15 days starting May 31, while Singapore this month reissued some lockdown conditions it has put in place. The DimsMalaysia lockdown “will slow the country’s recovery, with a good chance that second-quarter GDP growth will contract sequentially,” said Khoon Goh, Asia research manager at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. “We will likely see the ringgit continue to underperform in the region, but its weakness is offset by a weak US dollar.” READ: ‘Covid Zero’ Havens finds reopening more difficult than taming virus Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin must announce a According to his Facebook post, Monday at 9 p.m. local time Monday’s market decline is pale compared to last year, when the KLCI fell 5% per day after announcing a nationwide lockdown. Ivy Ng Lee Fang, analyst at CGS-CIMB Securities, Ivy Ng Lee Fang, analyst at CGS-CIMB Securities, said in a report that the forecast of a “mild” reaction is due to the availability of vaccines and a government plan to increase daily vaccination rates in the second half of 2021. Strong export sales, strong market liquidity and low interest rates have also helped to limit the market decline, she said. declared. GDP Outlook Malaysia’s gross domestic product fell 0.5% in the first quarter from a year earlier, the central bank said earlier in May, adding that it expects growth to stay within. the forecast range of 6% to 7.5% for the whole year. Banks, including Public Bank Bhd. and CIMB Group Holdings Bhd., fell, while Maxis Bhd. and Supermax Corp. were among the biggest drops in the benchmark gauge. , down more than 2%. Top Glove Corp. was the top winner in the key stocks measure, up 1.8%. The benchmark Malaysian equities index is down 6% from a December high as investor concerns over the impact of tighter restrictions on movement weigh on riskier assets. in cyclical sectors, it will take a longer term investment perspective with a focus on securing a favorable entry price, ”said Chia of RHB Investment. “Trading angle will remain a lasting theme in the coming quarters that will continue to focus on small and mid caps with resilient growth attributes.” (Updates with PM release in seventh paragraph) More articles like this are available on bloomberg.com ahead of time with the most trusted source of business news. © 2021 Bloomberg LP