Monthly Archives: June 2017

Progress Software on Wednesday announced that it has acquired Kinvey, a start-up that offers a service that developers can use to build and host mobile apps that integrate with existing enterprise software systems. The deal cost Progress $49 million.

Progress, which makes software for companies to build cross-platform applications and claims 80,000 enterprise customers, made the announcement alongside its earnings report for the quarter ended May 31. The company earned $0.21 per share on $93.2 million in revenue during the quarter. Progress stock was up 4 percent in after-hours trading.

Earlier this year Progress unveiled a new strategic plan that emphasizes cognitive application development. The word "cognitive," a nod to computing in a way that's similar to what the human brain can do, has been popularized by IBM in recent years. The push comes during a phase of industry-wide investment in artificial intelligence (AI).

"In the future, the market is trending to the point where app development platforms have to exhibit certain new characteristics to enable intelligent and useful apps that come to you, instead of you going to an app," Kinvey cofounder and CEO Sravish Sridhar told CNBC in an email.

Kinvey was founded in 2010 and based in Boston. Over the years Kinvey became known as a key provider of mobile backend as a service, which provides the underlying necessary computing and storage infrastructure for apps, with customers such as Schneider Electric and VMware. The company had raised nearly $18 million in venture capital from investors such as Verizon Ventures and NTT Docomo.

One of Kinvey's competitors, Parse, was acquired by Facebook in 2013 and subsequently shut down.

Kinvey will remain available as a standalone product but will be integrated with existing Progress tools such as NativeScript and DataDirect, wrote Sridhar, who will report to Progress CEO Yogesh Gupta.

Progress acquired predictive maintenance start-up DataRPM for $30 million in March.

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Progress buys mobile backend start-up Kinvey for $49 million - CNBC

The Seattle Times

Progress on I-90 light-rail work The Seattle Times Standing within an Interstate 90 bridge pontoon, project manager Brawn Lausen, of Kiewit-Hoffman Construction, describes how four long cables of steel will be threaded through dozens of cell walls, cinching all 18 pontoons into one unit. This is ...

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Progress on I-90 light-rail work - The Seattle Times

9 hours ago Brent Earnest By Joey Peters | 9 hours ago

More than one year after three top state officials refused to answer questions in federal court about fraud allegations and nine months after a federal judge held their cabinet secretary in contempt of court, the state Human Services Department (HSD) appears to still be seriously mishandling how it processes federal benefits to New Mexicos poor.

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Now, the advocacy organization representing plaintiffs in a decades-long lawsuit against HSD is asking a judge to impose monetary sanctions on HSD and its secretary, Brent Earnest. The call for sanctions comes over the departments alleged failures to meet federal guidelines on processing Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

Related: Read NM Political Reports award-winning coverage on the states SNAP scandal

Medicaid is the federal health care program for the poor while SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, provides federal food aid to the poor.

Until the department comes into federal compliance with processing these benefits, the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty wants the judge to fine Earnest $100 a day.

In the meantime, poor New Mexicans are suffering, according to a legal memo filed in federal court this week by the Center.

Eligible New Mexicans are without food and medical assistance because [HSD] has a backlog of tens of thousands of unprocessed cases, the memo reads. The vast majority of clients cannot get through by phone and systemic changes required by multiple court orders have not been enacted.

The current controversy dates to last spring, when the Center argued that HSD was failing to comply with a consent decree from the Debra Hatten-Gonzales v. HSD lawsuit. The lawsuit originally alleged the state failed to adequately process Medicaid and SNAP benefits. Its 1990 settlement set forth new guidelines through the consent decree that the state is required to follow to meet federal law.

The case once again propelled to the forefront last summer after nine employees in HSDs Income Support Division were called to testify by the Center. Before federal court, the employees made shocking allegations of a longstanding department policy to falsify SNAP applications. The workers alleged superiors told them to adding fake assets to emergency SNAP applications so the department could cut down on its backlog of SNAP cases to avoid getting in trouble from the federal government.

A federal judge agreed with the Centers assessment last fall and held Earnest in contempt for failing to follow the consent decree. The court also appointed an independent special master to steer HSD into federal compliance.

But the state department has made shockingly little progress in righting its ship in the six months since the special master came on board, according to the memo.

Lawrence Parker, the special master and former Texas state administrator who District Judge Kenneth Gonzales picked last fall to oversee HSDs handling of federal benefits, is expected to give recommendations to the court Thursday afternoon on how the department should proceed from here. Gonzales scheduled the status conference for the afternoon and required Earnest to attend.

An HSD spokesman, through an automatic email message, referred NM Political Reports questions to a spokesman for Gov. Susana Martinez, who did not answer them before press time.

Multiple deficiencies

The Centers latest memo reveals alleged systematic problems with how HSD responds to requests for help from some of New Mexicos most vulnerable.

The Centers memo lays out problems including:

HSDs lack of a functional phone system in its customer service call center for SNAP and Medicaid applicants and recipients. Currently, the call center answers just 35 percent of its calls from English language speakers and 19 percent of its calls from Spanish speakers.

HSD own illegal directives that restrict access benefits and instruct workers to misrepresent facts, including one order to stop all SNAP and Medicaid interviews after 3:30 p.m. Another order instructs workers to withhold information from applications and give false information about the clients wish to reschedule the interview to their superiors.

The departments proposed new SNAP regulations that contain many errors and delete entire sections that explain verification requirements for non-citizens in apparent violation of federal law.

HSD overall lack of processing SNAP renewal applications in a timely manner, despite progress.

The departments delays on Medicaid applications, which continue to increase. Overdue Medicaid renewals, for example, more than doubled between January and early June from nearly 24,000 to almost 53,000 and then dropped to 38,000 by June 21.

Two HSD administrators, Laura Galindo and Marilyn Martinez, remain employed with the department one year after asserting their Fifth Amendment rights numerous times in court by refusing to answer questions about their involvement in allegedly instructing employees to falsify emergency SNAP applications. Galindo is currently the departments director of child support enforcement while Martinez is chief of the departments financial services bureau in the administrative services division.

Perhaps most serious of these detailed allegations is the revelation of an internal HSD directive from April obtained by the Center.

Illegal policy

The order, written by Customer Service Center Staff Manager Gwen Brubaker, instructs state employees to cease interviews and communications with Medicaid and SNAP recipients and applicants every day at 3:30 p.m. and to lie to the clients and their office superiors about the interview limits.

We discussed in the managers meeting today that we are not going to do interviews after 3:30, effective immediately, Brubaker wrote in the April email to staffers.

She went on to admonish employees for telling applicants the truth about the policy.

We also discussed that we were not saying this to clients, but I have seen 3 emails go out to offices since that that state per directive/instructions interviews are not being done after 3:30, Brubaker wrote. Please make sure that staff are not saying this to the clients, including in emails to offices or in case notes.

And instead of informing the office about the new policy, Brubaker instructed her workers to lie and just say to the client that they are not available and to the office that the client has requested the interview to be rescheduled.

Brubaker ended her with Thank you!

Sovereign Hager, a staff attorney with the Center, sees a lot of problems with the directive.

Off the bat, the policy is wrong. Its illegal, she said in an interview.

Hager added that apart from instructing state employees to lie, the policy to reschedule interviews causes some clients to wait for months to receive the federal benefits for which they are otherwise eligible.

Its just really a horrible tactic thats dishonest, she said.

Its unclear if and to what extent HSD management was aware of or responsible for this policy.

Customer service problems still apparent

A big part of HSDs problems, according to the Centers memo, is that the department doesnt have enough staffers to meet its mission. A June email from HSD to the Center reveals the state has more than 100 vacancies in the departments Income Support Division, which manages federal benefits for New Mexicans.

To fix problems with the customer service phone line, HSD contracted with Conduent, the company formally known as Xerox. Its not clear when the contract, which does not show up in the states Sunshine Portal, will begin.

Hager questioned how effective this contract can be since federal law mandates that only public employees are allowed to work on SNAP benefits.

They cant really do anything on peoples cases because theyre not state employees, Hager said of Conduent.

Altogether, the poor customer service means people get caught in a web of not getting answers to questions, Hager said, and showing up at an HSD office in person is a multi-hour wait.

The departments leadership has apparently suffered as well. After the department demoted ISD Director Marilyn Martinez, who refused to answer questions about her alleged involvement in systemic fraud last year by pleading her Fifth Amendment rights, it left her position unfilled for more than one year.

The Center also argues that HSD is wasting what limited resources it has on new and unneeded programs like requiring more Medicaid patients to pay co-pays for service.

The special master, in some ways, echoed this criticism. In March, Parker recommended HSD cease all efforts to plan, develop or implement new programs, with the exception of programs required by state or federal agencies to meet requirements within regulations.

It isnt clear what, if any, decision Gonzales will make during or after the Thursday hearing.

Parker is ordered to serve as special master through the calendar year. If by then the court finds that HSD is still not in or on its way to federal compliance, the judge could appoint a federal receiver with much broader authority to come in and fix the problems.

Read the Centers legal memo below:

Show Temp.pl by New Mexico Political Report on Scribd

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State makes 'shockingly little progress' in mending SNAP scandal - New Mexico Political Report

LONDON Britain's progress in tackling climate change is stalling and new strategies and policies are needed to ensure ambitious greenhouse gas emissions cuts continue, the government's climate advisers said in a report on Thursday.

Britain's greenhouse gas emissions are around 42 percent lower than in 1990, which is around half way towards the government's legally binding target to slash them by 80 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels, the Committee on Climate Change report said.

The progress so far has been achieved even though gross domestic product has risen by more than 65 percent since 1990.

However, most of the emissions reductions have occurred in the power and waste sectors. Emissions in the transport and building sectors are rising and infrastructure remains vulnerable to severe weather.

"The good news is we have got half way. But the way we have achieved this is almost entirely focused on the power sector," Matthew Bell, chief executive of the committee, told Reuters.

"We cannot extrapolate that to 2050. Power sector emissions have been lowered so much ... We won't get the remaining distance we need if other sectors don't start contributing," he said.

Earlier this week, Britain's new climate change minister, Claire Perry, said the government would publish its Clean Growth Plan - a framework for how Britain will reduce emissions in the 2020s and 2030s - after the parliamentary summer recess.

Parliament closes on July 20 and reconvenes on Sept. 5.

The plan's release was originally scheduled for late 2016. The delay has been criticized by investors who are looking for policy certainty.

Under current policies, Britain is on track to miss its legally-binding emission reduction targets for the mid-2020s onwards, prompting calls for more action in the heat, buildings, industry, transport and agriculture sectors.

The government also needs to present Parliament with detailed measures to address climate risks, such as risks to households and businesses from flooding, so its national adaptation program can be published early next year, the report said.

Britain has experienced significant political upheaval over the past year after a referendum resulted in the move to leave the European Union.

"There is concern Brexit negotiations divert a lot of attention and resources but we also need to think about climate change issues," Bell added.

(Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

BERLIN In the aftermath of Britain's departure from the European Union and the U.S.'s withdrawal from the Paris climate pact, the bloc's remaining members must take greater responsibility for "existential" challenges the world faces, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

Hot, dry weather forecast for Thursday could stoke a fast-growing wildfire in central Arizona that firefighters are struggling to contain, authorities said.

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Britain's progress on climate change is stalling, government advisers say - Reuters