The cloudification architecture platform will support the latest 4K/Ultra High Definition, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality/FILE
By CORRESPONDENT, NAIROBI, Kenya, Nov 3 – Huawei is set to release its Envision Video Platform in Africa during Africacom to be held on 7- 9 November in Cape Town, aiming to assist carriers in developing and optimising video as a fundamental service with the best user experience.
The cloudification architecture platform will support the latest 4K/Ultra High Definition, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality; these technologies will improve the users experience with high quality video and enable user interaction. This platform can also optimize video streaming services based on network conditions.
“By releasing this platform during Africacom, we want to deliver a message to operators and our partners, that in this golden era for video business, especially 4K video, we are ready and capable of helping them shape their video strategies to drive new revenue,” says David Chen, Director of Marketing Solution Sales of Huawei Southern Africa Region.
Africacom is the premier Pan-African technology, telecoms and media event which takes place in Cape Town, South Africa annually. Celebrating its 20th anniversay this year, the event promises to showcase cutting edge ICT innovations and host high level discussions on Accelerating Africa’s digital revolution. Over 400 exhibitors and 11 thousand delegates are expeted to attend.
As a key particpant, Huawei’s theme for AfricaCom 2017 is ROADS to New Growth, with a focus on working together with operators and industry partners to explore ways to build a successful ecosytem that will speed up return on investment (ROI) and achieve value-driven new growth.
Huawei kicks off AfricaCom with the highly anticipated local launch of its flagship smart phone the Mate 10 series which is powered by the AI Kirin 970 chip featuring a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU).
South Africa will be among the first countries to have the Mate Series devices in country, with the HUAWEI Mate 10 Pro and the PORSCHE DESIGN HUAWEI Mate 10.
“We are delighted to bring the Mate 10 Pro and the Porsche Design Mate 10 to South Africa as we believe these devices will cater for the South African consumer needs as we enter the age of AI,” said Likun Zhao, GM, Huawei Consumer Business Group SA.
KITCHENER, ON–(Marketwired – November 02, 2017) – For the fourth year in a row, Vidyard, the new generation video platform for business, has partnered with Demand Metric, the marketing research and advisory firm, to publish The 2017 State of Video Marketing report. Based on research conducted with B2B marketing and sales teams across a wide range of markets and company sizes, this year’s results showed that the use of video within marketing teams is rapidly accelerating with a significant growth in the number of sales teams now also using video:
Video Creation Remains Priority as Usage Rapidly Increases: Over 90 percent of study participants report that video is becoming more important as a form of marketing content, while 93 percent report having some type of video creation capabilities in-house to reflect those needs.
The Role of Video is Expanding from Marketing to Sales: 37 percent of sales teams are now using video throughout the sales cycle and 23 percent are now creating their own video content, both measures are up more than 50 percent from the previous year.
Video is Becoming More Integrated with Business Systems: 45 percent of marketers report integrating video data within their marketing automation or customer relationship platforms, up more than 30 percent from the previous year.
Video Creation Remains Priority as Usage Rapidly Increases
For the fourth consecutive year, over 90 percent of study participants report that video is becoming more important as a form of marketing content within their businesses. The percentage of participants that report that video converts better than other content types have averaged 71 percent over the four years of this study, with video remaining the favored content type. The most commonly produced video continues to be Product videos, produced by 63 percent of the organizations surveyed.
As businesses continue to create videos, budgets are following. This year, 90 percent of study participants reported having the same or a growing video budget. The usage of video across websites, social media, landing pages and sales conversations has increased year-over-year, with the volume of videos produced annually increasing to an average of 38 videos, up 31 percent from 29 last year. Today, only seven percent of study participants rely exclusively on third-party production for video creation with 93 percent having some type of video creation production capabilities in-house.
« Marketers today need little convincing that video is a powerful content form. By every measure — lead creation, conversions, SERP ranking, time on page, likes, shares and any other form of engagement — video’s power to inform and persuade is unmatched, » says Jeff Loeb, CMO at Vidyard. « With the rise of new-generation video platforms, marketing and sales teams are using video to drive more qualified leads, cut through the noise, and accelerate pipeline ».
The Role of Video is Expanding from Marketing to Sales
There has been a two-fold increase in the number of survey respondents who report using video as part of their account-based marketing (ABM) strategy. More companies today (37 percent) use video as part of their sales conversion process, up from 25 percent last year. Video creation within sales departments is also on the rise with the introduction of tools like Vidyard GoVideo and others. Results indicate that 23 percent of sales teams are creating more of their own video content this year, up from just 15 percent in 2016. Usage of video viewing data by sales teams to qualify, engage or influence deals is also up 13 percent year-over-year which indicates that video has become more accessible and desirable for personalized communications.
Video is Becoming More Integrated with Business Systems
Integrating video viewing data into marketing automation platforms (MAP) or customer relationship management platforms (CRM) like Salesforce, Marketo, Eloqua, Hubspot, and others enable marketing and sales teams to monitor and track video usage metrics. In 2017, 45 percent of marketers reported having integrated video viewing data within these applications, up from 30 percent each of the last two years. The percentage of organizations that have integrated video viewing data — and are exploiting it — with key sales and marketing systems jumped from 13 to 20 percent this year.
Over 70 percent of this study’s participants were in marketing roles in B2B or mixed B2B/B2C organizations that reported revenue growth in the most recently completed fiscal year. All of the organizations that participated in this study are using video in their sales and marketing efforts. Agencies and studios were disqualified from contributing to the study.
Vidyard is the new generation video platform for business that helps organizations drive more revenue through the use of online video. Going beyond video hosting and management, Vidyard helps businesses drive greater engagement in their video content, track the viewing activities of each individual viewer, and turn those views into action. Global leaders such as Honeywell, McKesson, Lenovo, LinkedIn, Citibank, and Sharp rely on Vidyard to power their video content strategies and turn viewers into customers. To learn more about Vidyard, please visit www.vidyard.com.
About Demand Metric
Demand Metric is a marketing research and advisory firm serving a membership community of over 100,000 marketing professionals and consultants in 75 countries. Offering consulting playbooks, advisory services, and 500+ premium marketing tools and templates, Demand Metric resources and expertise help the marketing community plan more efficiently and effectively, answer the difficult questions about their work with authority and conviction, and complete marketing projects more quickly and with greater confidence — thus boosting the respect of the marketing team and making it easier to justify resources the team needs to succeed. To learn more about Demand Metric, please visit www.demandmetric.com.
REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–YuMe,
Inc. (NYSE: YUME), a proven partner for video advertising leadership
and innovation, today launched its People-Based Marketing Suite to
enable cross-screen audience targeting, sequential messaging, and
attribution for U.S. audiences. YuMe’s brand and agency clients can now
create custom, screen-agnostic audiences intended to target consumers
using device identifiers across online, mobile, tablet, smart TV and
connected TV (CTV) devices, creating a seamless digital advertising
experience at scale.
“We believe the future of our industry hinges, in large part, upon the
adoption of data-centric, people-based marketing strategies that place
consumers first,” said Michael Hudes, Chief Revenue Officer, YuMe. “We
are proud to introduce our new solution to help brands not only target
and reach their consumers, but influence them with relevant messaging
that builds upon interactions and prior messaging exposure. By including
first-party, people-based data within our programmatic media buying
technology, we expect to deliver higher performing branding campaigns
for our clients who are retargeting and increasing engagement.”
The YuMe People-Based Video Marketing Suite offers advertisers the
following benefits for United States audiences:
Cross-Device Custom Audience Segment Creation and Targeting
Screen Agnostic Sequential Messaging
Universal Frequency Capping
Cross-screen Attribution and Reporting
Hudes continued, “To help us deliver on our people-based video vision,
we’ve partnered with Drawbridge to leverage their Connected Consumer
Graph® and ensure we have critical data underpinning our
solution that allows us to connect audiences across PC, mobile, and
connected TV.”
The Drawbridge Connected Consumer Graph includes more than 1.3 billion
consumers across more than 3.3 billion devices – representing 75% of the
global active devices used to access the internet. In addition to its
scale, the Drawbridge Connected Consumer Graph is also extremely
precise, having been found by Nielsen to be up to 97.3% precise in
connecting consumers across devices. Drawbridge works with a breadth of
agencies, enterprises, and brands – including Publicis Groupe,
Foursquare, Samsung, LiveRamp, Adform, Throtle, and MC Saatchi Mobile.
“We believe digital video is the next big market for people-based
marketing, as video migrates from brand-only campaigns, to an essential
strategy for retargeting and direct response,” said Winston Crawford,
COO, Drawbridge. “We are happy to partner with YuMe to bring to market a
strong cross-device, people-based identity management solution to the
digital video landscape. With our Connected Consumer Graph underpinning
YuMe’s new product suite, advertisers can now more easily reach their
ideal audiences.”
The YuMe People-Based Marketing Suite is part of YuMe’s broader
portfolio of programmatic and managed-service media buying solutions,
and is available now for audiences in the United States. To learn more
about the offering, please visit http://go.yume.com/l/21392/2017-10-27/588jmq
About YuMe
YuMe is a proven partner for video advertising leadership and
innovation. We provide superior brand solutions with data-driven
audience insights that increase engagement and sales. YuMe’s
programmatic, audience-based technologies and unrelenting service
deliver a complete marketing solution to engage audiences wherever they
interact with content that matches their needs and interests. YuMe is
headquartered in Redwood City, California, with worldwide offices. For
more information, visit www.YuMe.com,
follow @YuMevideo on Twitter (www.twitter.com/YuMevideo),
or like YuMe on Facebook at www.facebook.com/YuMevideo.
About Drawbridge
Drawbridge is the leading people-based identity management company that
enables brands and enterprises to create personalized experiences for
their customers. The company uses patented large-scale AI and machine
learning technologies to build democratized data solutions that are
driving the intersect between mar-tech and other categories with
applications including advertising, personalization, content management,
product recommendations, authentication, and risk detection. The company
is headquartered in Silicon Valley, is backed by Sequoia Capital,
Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, and Northgate Capital, and has been
named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list, made the Inc. 5000 list for the
past two years, and was listed on the CB Insights AI 100 list of the
most promising artificial intelligence companies. For more information
visit
www.drawbridge.com.
Forward-Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including those
in management quotations. In some cases, you can identify
forward-looking statements by the words « may, » « will, » « expect, »
« intend, » « plan, » « objective, » « anticipate, » « believe, » « estimate, »
« predict, » « project, » « potential, » « continue » and « ongoing, » or the
negative of these terms, or other comparable terminology intended to
identify statements about the future. All statements other than
statements of historical fact are statements that could be
forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements
about the impact and value of cross-device targeting, and the benefits
derived therefrom; market trends; and quotations from management. These
forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties,
assumptions and other factors that could cause actual results and the
timing of events to differ materially from future results that are
expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. These risks are
discussed under « Risk Factors » in YuMe’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q
for the quarter ended June 30, 2017 that has been filed with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), and in our future
filings and reports with the SEC. The forward-looking statements in this
press release are based on information available to YuMe as of the date
hereof, and we assume no obligation to update any forward-looking
statements.
Investigators continued Thursday to probe the 29-year-old Uzbek immigrant charged with the New York truck attack, poring over his communications to see if he had any help or guidance before carrying out his deadly rampage, while President Trump publicly weighed in on the federal prosecution of the suspect.
New York police officials say the attacker appears to have radicalized himself online and that it does not appear anyone else was involved, though they said that continues to be a key question in the international investigation launched after the Halloween attack in Lower Manhattan killed eight people and wounded a dozen others.
Federal authorities charged Sayfullo Saipov, the suspected attacker, with providing support to a terrorist organization, saying that he was inspired by the Islamic State to carry out the rampage. The militant group, also known as ISIS, has urged its supporters to use vehicles for attacks.
In the charging document, filed Wednesday, authorities said Saipov planned for a year to carry out an attack in the United States and ultimately chose Halloween because he believed more people would be outside as potential targets.
The federal prosecution against Saipov was just hours old when a potentially complicating factor emerged in the form of a presidential tweet. Since the attack, Trump has publicly criticized the American criminal justice system and weighed sending Saipov to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
“Would love to send the NYC terrorist to Guantanamo but statistically that process takes much longer than going through the Federal system,” Trump wrote early Thursday. He continued: “There is also something appropriate about keeping him in the home of the horrible crime he committed. Should move fast. DEATH PENALTY!”
Trump’s comments, much like remarks he made about Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, could create a hurdle in the federal case. While one of the charges against Saipov — one count of violence and destruction of a motor vehicle — could carry with it a possible death sentence, the Justice Department has not yet said whether it will seek that penalty. If prosecutors do pursue a rare federal death sentence against Saipov, defense attorneys could argue that Trump’s tweets may prevent a jury from giving the suspect a fair trial.
The remarks from Trump broke from the tradition that presidents and other senior officials refrain from commenting on ongoing cases in ways that could complicate proceedings, though he is not the first commander in chief to do so. In 2009, then-President Barack Obama weighed in on the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and suggested he would get the death penalty; Obama then backtracked and said he did not mean to prejudge the case.
In a statement released before Trump’s comments, David Patton, Saipov’s attorney, said: “In a case like this involving so much tragedy, it’s more important than ever to let the judicial process play out. How we as a society treat Mr. Saipov will say more about us than it will about him.”
At a speech Thursday in New York City that was scheduled before the truck attack, Attorney General Jeff Sessions highlighted the work federal prosecutors have done bringing cases against terrorism suspects in federal court.
He noted particularly the recent conviction of Ahmad Khan Rahimi, who set off bombs in New York and New Jersey last year; the recent unsealing of charges against three men who plotted to bomb the New York City subway and Times Square; and the apprehension of Mustafa al-Imam, a Libyan national charged with participating in the 2012 Benghazi attacks.
The remarks, in some ways, seemed to be a subtle hint to the president that terror suspects can face justice in American courts. But Sessions, a vocal supporter of using the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, also made mention of the facility there.
“Terrorists should know: this Administration will use all lawful tools at our disposal, including prosecution in Article III courts and at Guantanamo Bay,” Sessions said, according to a prepared copy of his remarks. “If anyone has any doubt about that, they can ask the more than 500 criminals whom the Department of Justice has convicted of terrorism-related offenses since 9/11. And they can ask the dozens of enemy combatants in Guantanamo Bay.”
Sessions, who attended a roll call Thursday with officers, also heaped praise on the New York City Police Department, in particular the officer who shot and wounded Saipov.
The attorney general has had a strained relationship with New York City’s leaders, and in April declared that gang murders there were the “predictable consequence of the city’s ‘soft on crime’ stance.” Sessions’s remarks drew pushback from New York officials, as have some of Trump’s comments.
By Thursday afternoon, Trump had returned his focus to immigration, saying that he was calling for Congress to end a visa lottery program the suspected attacker used to get into the country years earlier.
Trump, in one of his tweets about the New York attack, cited one of the most incendiary parts of the criminal complaint filed against Saipov. Authorities said that Saipov told them he felt good about what he had done and, while speaking to investigators, “requested to display ISIS’s flag in his hospital room.”
In the criminal complaint, the FBI described what Saipov said in his Manhattan hospital room, depicting him as a man who had reams of Islamic State propaganda on his phones and carefully plotted what he was doing.
Saipov told agents he wanted to kill as many people as he could, court papers state, and he considered putting Islamic State flags at the front and back of his truck before deciding that would draw too much attention.
Authorities said Saipov told them that while he first decided a year ago to carry out an attack in the United States — the country where he moved in 2010 on a diversity visa and became a legal permanent resident — he only decided to use a truck two months before.
Saipov rented one on the week before the attack to practice making turns with it, authorities said. A neighbor said he thought it was suspicious that Saipov was driving an apparently empty truck in recent weeks near their homes in New Jersey.
Police say that on Tuesday afternoon, Saipov drove a truck onto the bike path along the west side of Manhattan and targeted cyclists and pedestrians as he careened south. Among those Saipov is accused of killing were a group of childhood friends from Argentina, now in their late 40s, who had been planning a trip to New York for years; a young mother; and two men in their 20s and 30s from New York and New Jersey.
Saipov told authorities he was particularly inspired by a video capturing Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi asking Muslims in the United States what they were doing to respond to the killing of other members of their faith in Iraq, the complaint states.
Officials have said that Saipov apparently became radicalized online after he came to the United States. He “appears to have followed almost exactly to a T the instructions that ISIS has put out in its social media channels” laying out guidance for carrying out an attack, according to John Miller, the deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism at the New York City Police Department.
Among other things, officials say Saipov used a rented truck, had brought knives and a stun gun as additional weapons and left behind notes declaring his allegiance. According to court papers, one note, written in Arabic, could be translated in part to read: “Islamic Supplication. It will endure.”
As the Islamic State has suffered battlefield losses and seen its self-declared caliphate shrink, terrorism by vehicle has become the attack of choice for the group’s adherents and supporters in other areas. The tactic has been used, with deadly results, in France, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Spain and Canada.
Investigators are still exploring whether anyone else had any knowledge of or aided in the New York plot. The FBI said briefly on Wednesday it was seeking another man — 32-year-old Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, or Muhammad Kadirov — in connection with the investigation. The bureau gave no indication why they were seeking him and, minutes later, reversed course, saying they had found him but providing no further details.
A person who was in touch with both Saipov’s and Kadirov’s families on Wednesday said that Kadirov is in New Jersey, has retained an attorney and is cooperating with law enforcement officials, but that he was not under arrest as of Wednesday evening. The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said Kadirov is Saipov’s cousin and seemed “utterly shocked and horrified” by what Saipov had done.
The rampage on Tuesday afternoon ended when Saipov crashed into a school bus and emerged from his truck armed with a paintball gun and pellet gun, police said. A passer-by flagged down police officers responding to an unrelated call at a school in the area, and one of them shot and wounded Saipov, police said.
Authorities also said Saipov intended to continue his attack beyond the bike path. He told investigators he intended to keep going to the Brooklyn Bridge to kill even more people, the complaint states, but was apparently unable to after crashing the truck.
Eli Rosenberg and Abigail Hauslohner in Paterson, N.J.; Renae Merle in New York; and Devlin Barrett, Sari Horwitz, Julie Tate, Philip Rucker, Amy B Wang and Samantha Schmidt in Washington contributed to this report, which has been updated.
“Americans will be able to continuing making both traditional, pretax contributions and ‘Roth’ contributions in the way that works best for them,” Republican lawmakers said in their talking points.
But the legislation includes several land mines that could complicate its passage, including limits on the popular mortgage interest deduction and caps on the state and local tax deduction, as well as its overall cost. Several Republicans from high-tax states like New York and New Jersey said the bill would need to change to gain their support, while powerful trade groups representing the real estate industry and small businesses blasted the bill as ineffective and harmful to Americans
“Contrary to their assertions, the Republicans are picking winners and losers,” Jerry Howard, the chief executive of the National Association of Homebuilders, said in an interview. “They are picking rich Americans and corporations over small businesses and the middle class.”
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are working on their own tax bill, and on Thursday, Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, lobbed a grenade into the House plan over its cost.
“As I have made clear from the beginning of this debate, it is my hope that the final legislation — while allowing for current policy assumptions and reasonable dynamic scoring — will not add to the deficit, sets rates that are permanent in nature and closes a minimum of $4 trillion in loopholes and special interest deductions,” Mr. Corker said. “I appreciate the work the Senate tax-writing committee is doing to finalize legislative text and look forward to the debate ahead.”
Representative Kevin Brady, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said that the House plan had the “full support” of Mr. Trump and predicted that it would be on the president’s desk this year. Anticipating the resistance from industry groups, Mr. Brady said, “We’re going to prove them wrong once and for all.”
Representative Peter Roskam, Republican of Illinois and a member of the Ways and Means Committee, said he was bracing for the lobbyist onslaught but would not be deterred.
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“We’ve just finished the opening ceremonies of the lobbyist Olympics. My phone has all kinds of messages and there are all kinds of criticisms,” he said. “The notion of just defending the status quo is insufferable, and we’re not going to do it.”
Slide Show
Read the Talking Points on the G.O.P. Tax Plan
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The bill is estimated to cost $1.51 trillion over a decade, and lawmakers must keep it at that amount if they are to pass it along party lines and avoid a filibuster by Democrats. Lawmakers have been scrambling for days to find revenue to offset tax cuts that will cost trillions of dollars. That has prompted a host of changes on the individual side, including repealing tax breaks for things like medical expenses, moving expenses, student loan interest and adoption, as well as making some business tax breaks temporary.
The benefits for individual taxpayers will be mixed and depend largely on where they fall on the income scale, where they live and the types of tax breaks they tend to claim.
Those making up to $24,000 will pay no income tax. For married taxpayers filing jointly, earnings up to $90,000 would be taxed in the 12 percent bracket; earnings up to $260,000 would fall in the 25 percent bracket; and earnings up to $1 million would be taxed at the 35 percent rate. For unmarried individuals and those filing separately, the bracket thresholds would be half of these amounts, other than the 35 percent bracket, which would be $200,000 for unmarried individuals.
The proposal roughly doubles the standard deduction for middle-class families, expanding it to $24,000 for married couples, from $12,700, and setting it at $12,000 for individuals, from $6,530 today. Republicans also plan to expand the child tax credit to $1,600 from $1,000 and add a $300 credit for each parent and nonchild dependent, such as older family members, though that credit would expire after five years.
But it also tightens rules for claiming the child tax credit, a change that would hit immigrant parents whose children were born in the United States. Filers would need to provide a “work-eligible Social Security number” rather than just a taxpayer identification number in order to claim the credit. The left-leaning Center on Budget Policy and Priorities said the bill would roll back eligibility for about three million children in working families, including about 80 percent of whom were born in the United States.
The bill includes a host of other changes that will affect taxpayers in different ways. For instance, it repeals certain tax credits, including a 15 percent credit for individuals aged 65 or over or who are retired on disability. Right now, those individuals can claim up to $7,500 for a joint return, $5,000 for a single individual, or $3,750 for a married individual filing a joint return.
The House bill would entirely repeal that tax credit. It would also repeal the adoption tax credit, no longer allow deductions for tax preparation and repeal credits for alimony payments. And deductions for moving expenses would no longer be allowed
One of the biggest flash points is a proposed change to the popular mortgage interest deduction. Under the Republican plan, existing homeowners can keep the deduction, but future purchases will be capped at $500,000, down from the current $1 million limit.
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The National Association of Realtors came out swinging against the bill, suggesting a huge fight awaits over how real estate is treated.
“Eliminating or nullifying the tax incentives for homeownership puts home values and middle-class homeowners at risk, and from a cursory examination this legislation appears to do just that,” said William E. Brown, the president of the association. “We will have additional details upon a more thorough reading of the bill.”
Mr. Howard of the homebuilders group said the bill is a broken promise.
“It puts such severe limitations on homebuyers’ ability to use the mortgage interest deduction that home values will fall,” he said.
Another area of contention is the bill’s treatment of the state and local tax deduction, which is popular among many middle- and upper-middle-class taxpayers in high-cost states like New Jersey, New York and California. The House bill would limit the deduction to just property taxes, rather than state and local income taxes and general sales taxes, and cap the benefit at $10,000.
Several Republican lawmakers said they would oppose the bill in its current form, including Representatives Leonard Lance and Frank A. LoBiondo of New Jersey.
Representative Tom MacArthur, Republican of New Jersey, accepted the concept of retaining the deduction for property taxes as a compromise. But he said the $10,000 cap “needs to come up a little bit.”
The proposal will double the estate tax exemption to roughly $11 million, from $5.49 million, meaning families can avoid paying taxes on large inheritance. And it eventually repeals the estate tax altogether, phasing it out entirely in six years.
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Business groups that include large multinationals praised the bill effusively for lowering corporate rates permanently and sharply, and for overhauling the international tax system.
For the first time, the United States is proposing to effectively levy a global minimum tax of 10 percent, which would apply to income that high-profit subsidiaries of American companies earn anywhere in the world. The effort is aimed at preventing companies from shifting profits abroad and grabbing back some of the tax revenue on income earned overseas. Those profits are currently not taxed until they are returned to the United States, giving companies an incentive to keep that money offshore since they are taxed at the current corporate tax rate of 35 percent.
The White House has said more than $2.5 trillion in American profits are held offshore.
The bill would force companies to pay a one-time 12 percent tax on liquid assets held overseas, like cash. The tax, which is reduced from the current 35 percent tax rate, would be payable over eight years. For illiquid assets, like equipment or property, the tax rate would be 5 percent.
It would also force American subsidiaries of foreign-owned companies to pay a 20 percent excise tax on any payments sent back to foreign affiliates.
Neil Bradley, the chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called the bill a “home run” for economic growth and warned other groups against blocking it. “Everyone’s going to look at this and find something they don’t like,” Mr. Bradley said. “So they are going to have to decide, am I going to help get this done? Or am I going to get in the way?”
Among those less sanguine about the bill are small businesses, who said the bill does not go far enough to help them reduce their tax burden. Republicans stuck to their promise of lowering the tax rate for “pass through” businesses to 25 percent. But to prevent the rate from becoming a loophole for all sorts of individuals, tax writers have created a formula they say will ensure that business owners will pay a higher individual tax rate on income that they receive as wages. The formula would be applied based on the circumstances of the business.
That provision is not enough to satisfy the National Federation of Independent Business, which said in a statement it is “unable to support the House tax reform plan in its current form.”
People who fall into their careers don’t normally become award winners.
Yet that’s pretty much how the story goes for Stephano Barberis, a local award-winning music video director.
As Barberis puts it, he went backwards, skipping the teen and young adult years of his working life to take his directorial career back to childhood.
“When I was a kid, I do remember playing with my Star Wars characters and I remember saying to my friends, ‘you can’t stand there, that’s where the camera would be’,” he explained.
“So now, when I look back at it, it just links. I don’t think I’m doing anything different than what I did with my friends. I always was doing these weird skits… and the kids were riveted. I feel like I skipped my teens and 20s and went straight back into my childhood.”
Now, as the winner of 35 awards – 18 of which are from the BC Country Music Association, including the 2017 video director of the year – he sees his childhood awareness as part of the creativity that makes him a sought-out director.
“I’ve done close to about 170 music videos. It wasn’t really intended to be that way,” explained Barberis. “I guess I get so busy with music videos that I don’t have time for features.”
It takes about a month to create a music video Barberis’ way. There’s two weeks or more of pre-production and about two weeks of post-production with a day of shooting in between.
It sounds glamourous and not like something a regular guy living on the border of Langley and Surrey – near Clayton Heights – would be doing.
“When you live in a big city there’s obviously more creative people,” he explained.
“Obviously someone more successful should come out of a big city. But when you’re in a smaller centre like Surrey or Langley, it’s kind of cool [to say] “Oh, I don’t live downtown’.”
That doesn’t mean Barberis has grown used to his own success, mind you.
It was a very unusual beginning that’s lead to 20 years of award-winning music videos.
“I started 20 years ago. The very first music video was directed on the day [Princess] Diana died and I wasn’t even supposed to be doing that. I went to university for a few years to be an urban planner,” he recounted.
“Then I switched to BCIT, the marketing program. I had a job as a marketing assistant for a film production company for the summer. They had this one artist who they didn’t like the treatments for.”
As the story goes, Barberis threw out an idea to use an ice castle, and the artist loved it. The producer, however, shot a withering look to the rookie who opened his mouth in the room of directors.
But because of the saying “the client is always right,” Barberis’s idea stuck.
He described what happened next as feeling like being in film school.
When he initially took on directing, the crew often thought he was the actor, not the director, he was so young.
“So, I was thrown into directing and I had three assistant directors under me because I had no film experience,” he said, noting the story had a happy ending.
The artist for that first video [I’ll Do Anything] was Maple Ridge native, Rick Tippe.
Tippe had him do a number of videos after that, which seemed odd because country wasn’t a genre Barberis had great affinity for.
“Slowly country started noticing I was making country not look like country… I think I changed the way country videos were being made,” he said.
Another early Barberis video was Aaron Pritchett’s You Can’t Say That I Didn’t Love You.
“It went to number three in Canada and it went from there,” he recounted, adding that “Country and rap were the first two genres that embraced me… which is ironic because those weren’t the first two genres that appealed to me.”
He’s directed music videos for Chad Brownlee, Dallas Smith, Karen Lee Batten, Gord Bamford, Dean Broady, and Doc Walker, to name a few.
Regardless of the genre, it’s the creative process that keeps Barberis doing what he does, and doing it well enough to continue being recognized provincially, nationally and beyond.
“I like to make things all the time, it’s like oxygen to me. I think anything I do, I have to create,” he said.
“I wanted to get into advertising, so that’s probably what I would have done, but this is the same thing when you think about it, I’m still advertising music.”
While the recognition continues to pour in, Barberis is not used to the sensation of winning awards.
He describes his first win as shock, but subsequent wins continue to elicit a significant emotional response from the Kitimat-born professional.
“Every time they call my name, my eyes start tearing up,” he said.
“After a couple of times you’d think they’d be tired of me. I keep trying to reinvent myself. Every single video I make like it’s my last video.”
He sees his career as a positive model for local kids, though many wouldn’t know he’s a local.
“I still think I’m under a lot of people’s radar, I don’t think a lot of people know I’m here. A lot of people don’t expect me to be here,” he said.
“I would hope that it gives hope that you don’t have to live in a major centre to be successful. In fact when there’s less of you, you can shine brighter.”
Tourism executives have to strike a careful balance: They want to attract more visitors, but they also must be sensitive to the needs of the local environment and residents.
During a superpanel at Skift Global Forum in New York City in September, tourism leaders from Colombia, Jordan, and Los Angeles spoke about their unique challenges and approaches to keeping overtourism at bay.
The executives said none of their destinations were seeing the kind of crowds that have overwhelmed Barcelona, Reykjavik, or Dubrovnik yet. But they have also been paying attention to the struggles that those and other cities have been facing, and lessons that should be learned.
“We have the responsibility of not making the mistakes that other destinations have made, learning from them, and not just repeating history,” said Julián Guerrero Orozco, vice president of tourism at ProColombia.
He said Colombia is working to attract a reasonable number of higher-spending visitors, instead of a large number of tourists, in order to reduce the environmental impact of tourism.
In Los Angeles, residents are generally pro-tourism. It’s a problem, however, when too many people crowd specific areas — such as places with photo-worthy views of the famous Hollywood sign — and make life difficult for the people who live there.
“We have our pockets of issues like other major destinations around the world that we’re very concerned about,” said Ernest Wooden Jr., president and CEO of the Los Angeles Tourism Convention Board.
Solutions include pointing out alternate locations for photos, providing public transportation, and working with police and fire officials to reduce crowding.
“These are important issues that, unless we’re willing to sacrifice our long-term health in tourism, we’ve got to deal with,” Wooden said.
Lina Annab, Jordanian minister of tourism and antiquities, said Jordan has site management plans for popular locations. While the destination is seeing growth in visitor numbers, she said iconic sites are still relatively uncrowded.
Annab said it’s important to think about overtourism from a policy point of view.
“It did not happen overnight, overtourism in those destinations, and I think there are policy lessons to be learned,” she said. “Sometimes, we tend to focus on marketing only and we forget the other sustainable and environmental issues that need to be taken into consideration.”
At this year’s Skift Global Forum in New York City, travel leaders from around the world gathered for two days of inspiration, information, and conversation for panels such as this, as well as solo TED-like talks on the future of travel.
Two men are dead after a shooting inside the Walmart Super Center at 9901 Grant St. in Thornton, police confirmed Wednesday night.
They said an adult woman was transported to a hospital from the scene.
Hundreds of emergency responders ringed the Thornton Town Center shopping center for hours after the shooting was reported about 6:30 p.m. “Multiple parties” down, Thornton police said in a tweet.
An hour later, the Thornton Police Department tweeted “at this time this is not an active shooter.”
Just after 9 p.m., Thornton police tweeted that detectives were reviewing security footage and witnesses were being interviewed to help develop information for “suspect(s) desc/info.”
The Thornton Town Center is a big-box shopping center that backs to Interstate 25 south of 104th Avenue. It includes several other retailers, including The Home Depot. It’s also the location of a Cinebarre theater and McDonald’s.
People who had been in the store flooded the parking lot of the Golden Corral restaurant, overlooking the shopping center from the south. Others looked down on the Walmart waiting for news of their loved ones.
Aaron Stephens, 44, was in the self-checkout line at Walmart when he heard a single shot fired then more bursts of gunfire. He said customers started screaming and running for the exits.
“I was scared,” Stephens said. “I feared for my life.”
Stephens, who has lived in Thornton for 20 years, said he saw someone being taken into custody after the shooting.
No longer active shooter. Active crime scene. People are worried sick about loved ones. pic.twitter.com/ZB1FEiR6sS
Brandon Bonney said he received a call from his brother, Edward, from inside the store. “Bro, I’m inside Walmart, and there’s a shooting here,” he said.
Brandon said he told his brother to “just get somewhere and hide.” Edward started crying and Brandon told him to put his phone on silent and to stay calm. He said he hadn’t heard from Edward since.
Jay Quawrn Thompson, 18, was working in the back of the Walmart when he heard gunshots and then saw a woman running toward him screaming.
“A lady came running back, screaming about the shots. I got her out, ” said Thompson, who just started work at the store a month ago.
Together they ran out of the back of the store and then sat down and waited for help. Police stopped to make sure they were OK and then told them to get to safety.
Thompson was standing in the parking lot of the Golden Corral with no coat when Manny Colmenero stopped and asked if he was cold. When the teenager said yes, Colmenero took off his own coat and gave it to Thompson — and told him to keep it.
Colmenero, whose wife works for the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, talked about shootings that have dominated the news here and abroad.
“You see this stuff everywhere now,” he said. “We got to help each other out.”
Shooting just occurred at Walmart, 9900 Grant St, multiple parties down. Please stay away from the area. pic.twitter.com/MdffbTPLKl
Police warned people in the area to stay away from the shopping center. Streets leading to the area were blocked by emergency vehicles and police officers armed with long guns standing at intersections.
