Monthly Archives: July 2021

The arrest of NFL cornerback Richard Sherman generated plenty of coverage and reactions, and some specific scorn was reserved for the 911 dispatcher who took his wife's initial call.

That call is now under investigation by the King County Sheriff's Office, a public information officer confirmed to Yahoo Sports on Monday.

In a recording of the call obtained by Seattle's KIRO, the dispatcher answered a distraught-sounding Ashley Sherman, who requested immediate assistance because her husband is "drunk and belligerent and threatening to kill himself." The dispatcher immediately interjected over Sherman's pleas, saying "stop" repeatedly, then "you need to stop interrupting me so I can get the information I need to get officers expedited."

Later in the call, after Sherman describes her husband wrestling her uncle, the dispatcher responds "trying to fight somebody and actually making physical contact are two different things. How is it physical?" When Sherman stresses the situation is "a f***ing emergency," the dispatcher says "Listen to me, I am handling this. You need to stop telling me that. Talking to me is not going to slow help down."

At another point in which a man has joined Sherman on the call, the dispatcher reacts by saying "Sir, I only talk to one person so please put the phone down."

Many on social media harshly criticized the dispatcher's behavior, calling her "absurdly condescending," "combative" and "indifferent and rude," with several calls to fire her.

The dispatcher was so criticized that the Redmond Police Department put out a statement Monday distancing itself from the call, which was handled by the King County Sheriff's Office. The statement also mentioned King County will be conducting an administrative review of the call that will require several months.

"Many have mistakenly associated those calls to the City of Redmonds Communications Center, which is not connected to the King County Sheriffs Office. The City of Redmond was not involved in the recordings highlighted by the complaints. The King County Sheriffs Office, in response to public comment, opened an administrative review of this matter that will take several months to conclude."

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Subsequent calls regarding Sherman were handled by Redmond, where Sherman later drove and tried to break down the door of his in-laws' house.

While the dispatcher was widely criticized, she had one defender in former King County sheriff John Urquhart, who told KIRO that she needed to be "short" due to the nature of her job:

The dispatcher has certain information she has to get, and she has to get it right now, Urquhart said.

Shes short with the woman because shes taking control. Any time youre in a conversation with someone, when someone takes control, that makes people step back and say, hey wow whats going on here? But in this case, they dont understand why its so important, why its absolutely critical and it can be life and death. They may be upset with kind of the tone of it. But when you realize all that has to be done, its just fine.

After his arrest, Sherman was initially held without bail on a felony "burglary domestic violence" charge, but was later released.

Sherman posted an apology for his actions, pledging to get help for his "mental and emotional health."

While the felony charge was dropped, Sherman was charged with five misdemeanors, per the Seattle Times: criminal trespass in the second degree with a domestic-violence element, reckless endangerment of roadway crews, driving under the influence, resisting arrest and malicious mischief with a domestic-violence element.

Sherman pleaded not guilty to all charges Friday.

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Richard Sherman 911 call under investigation by sheriff's office after widespread criticism - Yahoo Sports

The push to free Britney Spears from her fathers financial, professional, and emotional control has taken on a life of its own. Celebrities from Christina Aguilera to Missy Elliott to Halsey have spoken in support of Spears case, and #FreeBritney rallies have proliferated around the world. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are advocating for an end to abusive conservatorships: Sens. Ted Cruz and Elizabeth Warren have spoken out, and on Tuesday, Reps. Charlie Crist and Nancy Mace introduced a bipartisan Free Britney bill. But amid the increasingly loud public outcry and Spears (hopefully) moving closer and closer to freedom from her 13-year conservatorship, the question of whether she will ever regain the millions lost to her conservators remains unanswered.

Since 2008, Spears father, Jamie Spears, has controlled nearly every aspect of her life, from the color of her kitchen cabinets to the people she dates and befriends. After a bombshell hearing on June 23, in which Spears testified that shed been forced to take lithium and keep in an IUD, her case gained traction and on July 19, she was finally allowed to hire her own lawyer, Mathew Rosengart, who says he is aggressively pushing to remove Jamie from her conservatorship. She was also recently given permission to drive.

She is ecstatic and beyond grateful for all the help she is receiving right now, a source told People on Wednesday. But even with all these strides, Jamie has taken a large portion of money from Spears $60 million estate to act as her conservator.

According to documents obtained by Forbes, Jamie has collected at least $5 million from his daughter. Around half of this comes from the $16,000 monthly fee Spears has had to pay her father since February 2009, but shes also had to pay for his office, legal fees, and security. As Forbes reports, he also took a 1.5% cut of the gross ticket sales from her four-year Las Vegas residency. What makes this detail all the more disturbing is Spears allegation that she was forced to perform in Las Vegas while sick, or against her wishes; in other words, while she was purportedly put under a conservatorship to protect her own well-being, she was actually forced to work tirelessly to earn money she would never see.

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Whether she can remove her father from the conservatorship is one question, but will she ever be able to get back the money hes pocketed? Its not completely out of the question, but experts say its unlikely.

Spears has expressed an interest in charging Jamie with conservatorship abuse, but in order to bring about a criminal charge or reclaim her $5 million she would have to provide clear evidence of financial wrongdoing. For any of that money to be recouped, there would have to be a showing of some sort of bad faith or some sort of nefarious motive or significant breach of fiduciary duty, which would be unlikely, trust and estates attorney Andy Mayoras told Insider.

Tamar Arminak, a conservatorship attorney who worked on Amanda Bynes guardianship case, told Vulture that theres a record of Jamies income and spending. This could make it particularly hard to prove hes misspent Spears money. As a conservator for his daughter, all of Jamie Spearss income and expenses had to be approved by the court the $16,000 a month income and the $2,000 for office space, all of that has been court-approved and signed off on, Arminak said.

On the same note, Spears medical team has to submit repeated declarations on her mental capacity, Arminak added. All of this paints a picture of just how sinister and stringent conservatorships can be and why its been such a battle for Spears to break free.

With Rosengarts expertise, access to conservatorship documents, and ability to issue a subpoena, Spears might have a better shot at proving her father abused her finances. Sabino Biondi, an estates and trusts attorney at Wilk Auslander LLP, told Insider that Rosengart could then ask a judge to surcharge Jamie for misspent funds, but beyond that, he wouldnt be able to reverse the many payments Jamies collected.

Its unlikely Spears will ever get her $5 million back, but with her new, high-powered legal representation and public attention, it is possible that she can regain control of her estate. And right now, thats a priority.

It makes no sense whatsoever for the state of California to sit back and literally watch me, with their own two eyes, make a living for so many people and pay so many people, trucks and buses on tour, on the road with me, and be told Im not good enough, Spears said on June 23. Its been a long time since Ive owned my money, and its my wish and my dream for all of this to end.

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Conservators Took Millions From Britney Spears. Will She Ever Get Her Money Back? - Yahoo Finance

Colson Baker and Megan Fox met on the set of 'Midnight in the Switchgrass' (Photo: Lionsgate / Courtesy Everett Collection)

The rest of the world learned that Megan Fox and Colson Baker, aka Machine Gun Kelly, were an item in May 2020, when word of their romance, and her breakup from husband Brian Austin Green, first hit headlines. But producer-turned-director Randall Emmett who inadvertently orchestrated the most high-profile on-set romance since Bennifer 1.0 when he cast both performers in his directorial debut, Midnight in the Switchgrass was clued into their chemistry much earlier. Fox and Baker shot their first scene together on the first day of production in March 2020, and Emmett remembers feeling a palpable electricity right away.

"There was magic in that room, 100 percent," he tells Yahoo Entertainment now. "I sat there behind the monitor, and there were takes where I was so mesmerized by their performances that I would forget to say 'Action!' Megan sometimes had to be like, 'Randall, are you going to call 'Action?' I was like, 'Oh my god my bad!'"

In interviews, Fox and Baker have both been open about how quickly their mutual attracton sparked on the film's Puerto Rico set. "The second I was in a room with him and said hello to him and looked into his eyes, I knew right away that he was what I call a twin flame," Fox said on the podcast Give Them Lala... With Randall last year. Similarly, Baker told Howard Stern: "I didn't know what [love] was until me and her made eye contact. That's when I was like, 'Whoa.'"

Emmett is quick to say that whatever feelings his stars were wrestling with off-camera, they didn't let it interfere with the shoot. "As a director, I felt, 'Wow, there's some real magic happening there,' but I didn't see any more than that," he recalls. "They're both incredible actors, and their chemistry was flawless. I was just looking at them and thinking, 'Wow, that was a great scene,'" but didn't really think about anything else."

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Fox, Randall Emmett and Baker on the set of 'Midnight in the Switchgrass' (Photo: Courtesy of Lionsgate)

To be fair, Emmett had larger things on his mind anyway. Midnight in the Switchgrass started production in Puerto Rico just as the coronarvirus pandemic broke across the globe. After two days of shooting, the movie shut down and the cast and crew returned to quarantine in the U.S. And that's also when Fox and Baker's romance started in earnest. "It wasn't until after we shut down and went home that the relationship began," Emmett says now.

While it may have resulted in an on-set romance, Midnight in the Switchgrass is the opposite of romantic. Written by Alan Horsnail and based on the true-life case of Texas's infamous Truck Stop Killer, the film casts Fox as no-nonsense FBI agent, Rebecca Lombardi, whose attempts to crack a sex trafficking case alongside her partner (Bruce Willis) and another law enforcement officer (Emile Hirsch) bring her into contact with a serial killer (Lukas Haas) preying on young women. Baker plays a low-level thug who is on the receiving end of Fox's fury not just once, but twice. "I told him that Megan was going to kick his ass," Emmett says of how he initially. pitched the role to the musician-turned-actor.

Fox and Baker only have two scenes in the film, and both were shot before the pandemic-mandated shutdown. Emmett says he resisted adding more material for them after production resumed in June 2020, by which time their romance was public. "They were so good together, I did say to the writer, 'I wish we had more. Maybe Colson's character could come back and try to kick Megan's ass and Megan just takes him down.' But I was only joking: we shot exactly what was in the script."

A year-and-a-half since they filmed their first scene, viewers can finally. experience a little bit of Fox and Baker's "magic" when Midnight in the Switchgrass premieres in theaters and on most VOD services on July 23. For his part, Emmett is just glad the movie is finally out in the world. "It's great that people are excited to see the movie because of them, but I think when they see it, they'll see two really, really great performances. It's fun to say that it happened on my movie and maybe I had some hand in it, but I believe as Megan believes that fate is fate. A lot of fate happened on this movie, and at the end of the day it's nice to see two people so happy and in love."

In a wide-ranging conversation, we spoke with Emmett about how Baker very nearly turned down the role that would have brought him into Fox's orbit, and why the Transformers star wanted this to be her most "basic" role.

Yahoo Entertainment: What has it been like having this larger story about your two stars' romance surrounding the movie?

Randall Emmett: They say any press is good press I guess! [Laughs] Because of all the pandemic-caused shutdowns and restarts, I've been involved on a movie that was supposed to be an 18-day shoot for over a year now. So its been a journey! I really, really wanted Colson to be in it, but I got rejected by his agency at first. Two weeks before shooting began, I got his number and I reached out directly and told him how much I wanted him for the movie. He was like, "That is so badass that you are this persistent. I've got to do this." So he ended up committing and when he came to the set, he was exactly what I hoped for: a super-artistic person. He just wanted to won the character, and as a director, I couldn't have asked for anything better.

Baker and Fox in a scene from 'Midnight in the Switchgrass' (Photo: Courtesy of Lionsgate)

He has since admitted in interviews that he vowed to marry Megan Fox in high school. Looking back now, do you think that's why he said yes when you called him?

I don't know! I've read that recently, too. I did not know that he said he was going to marry Megan Fox when he was in high school, but he definitely knew Megan was in the movie because I told him who was in the cast, and also that Megan was going to kick his ass. [Laughs] So he definitely knew, and he had read the script, but we didn't have a conversation about that he was going to marry her. The one thing about Colson that I realized and others will as he does more movies is that he's an incredible artist. He really gives a s*** about the work, and when he committed to this movie, he committed to it. And then the rest kind of just fell into place. So it was a win across the board, I guess!

We haven't seen Megan Fox play this kind of role before. How did you decide on her as the star of the film?

She was my first choice. It's weird because as a producer, all I do is make lists [of actors]. When you produce a movie, you come up with 10 names, sit with a director and say, "I need to get one of these names to be able to raise the financing, and get the studio on board." I'm like the business person, and the director is the creative one. Since I was the director on this one, I was also the artist.

I remember reading the script and her agent had pitched her, and my casting director had pitched her. I was like, Oh my god, Megan Fox would kill this. It's a strong role with a lot of vulnerability, and she's got all those gears that you haven't seen from her. Shes a superstar, and this is a meaty role. I didn't think she'd be interested, but when we offered it to her, her agent called me and said, "She loves these script and wants to do it. We think its going to be something special."

Fox in a scene from 'Midnight in the Switchgrass' (Photo: Lionsgate/Courtesy Everett Collection)

The first time I met her was in Puerto Rico when she came in for rehearsals and fittings. We had to do this scene where she's locked up in chains, and I remember telling her: "I'm really an authentic director, so I want to put real chains on you to make you feel what this woman is going through not in a Hollywood way with fake chains. If you're not comfortable with that, you have to tell me." She looked at me and she's like, "Do you know the kind of movies I've done? There's nothing you can do, that's going to freak me out." And I'm thinking, "This chick has fought robots, she's been thrown through walls, she's jumped off buildings!"

That's who Megan Fox is. She really, really loves making movies and playing characters that she believes in. When she's in it, she's all the way in. Working with her was an incredible experience. She already is incredibly talented so it makes my job easy, but at the same time. I wanted to push her to try things and be open. She would always just look at me and say, "Just tell me what you need, whatever it is." For a director, especially a first-time director, you couldn't ask for better.

As a performer, she's very aware of her on-screen image. What conversations did you have about how she'd appear in this film?

We talked about her being really basic an FBI agent who doesn't give a shit what she looks like. This will be the most basic wardrobe anyone will ever seen on Megan Fox! [Laughs] I remember the day we filmed the scene where she goes undercover as a prostitute, I gave her a bunch of choices for the wardrobe and the more conservative one you see in the film was the one she picked, and it was also my first choice. She really got the character and wanted to embody an FBI agent who is all about justice. Rebecca is one of those people in law enforcement who care about saving the day, and saving girls who don't have voices. I didn't want that to get lost, and Megan felt the same.

Fox plays FBI agent Rebecca Lombardi in 'Midnight in the Switchgrass' (Photo: Courtesy of Lionsgate)

To that point, Midnight in the Switchgrass is very grim in the way it presents a story of sexual violence and trafficking. Is that subject matter you felt was important to address right now?

I definitely think it's important, and something that's not being discussed. A lot of these girls don't have voices: they're thrown away by society because they're addicts or prostitutes or runaways. Society doesn't take an interest in them, because they feel they've made this decision for themselves, and that's the part I have a hard time with. The truth is they need to have a voice, even if they're experiencing hard times or made bad choices. That doesn't mean they're not human beings and that's what I loved about this story.

It was nice to see Witness star Lukas Haas back in a major role as well.

Lukas and I were friends before this movie. He's such an incredibly giving actor and his body of work before the age of 18 is remarkable. He's popped up in a few movies here and there over the last decade, but now hes really back. One thing I told him is: "When you're a great actor, it doesn't matter if you're kind of quiet for a little bit." Just look at Robert Downey Jr. a few decades ago and look at him today he's the biggest box-office star in the world. So I feel like Lukas is really going to have a couple of great years coming up. He's shooting a new movie with Brad Pitt now, and I'm really excited for him.

Fox and Bruce Willis in a scene from 'Midnight in the Switchgrass' (Photo: Courtesy of Lionsgate)

You've produced numerous movies that feature Bruce Willis what was it like directing him for the first time?

As a producer, when I walk on a set and see Bruce, I give him a hug, sit in my chair, watch the director direct and then we go to dinner and I go home. When I was directing and Bruce walked onto the set, I was petrified! He's a guy that I've known for 15 years, but I had to talk to him in a very different light. If I didn't like something, I'd have to tell him. So it was a whole other psychology, but it ended up being better than I expected because he's a giving actor.

He did this as a favor to me, not for the kind of money that he takes on all of his other movies. I mean, he's Bruce Willis he doesn't need a lot of direction. That's why I wanted to cast great actors in this: half the battle is already won there. It's not like I had to teach anybody how to act! I was the one taking lessons throughout this whole thing. Your job as the captain is to steer the ship and that's what I tried to do, and I feel very lucky that everybody was very open to an artistic process on my first film.

Midnight in the Switchgrass premieres July 23 in theaters and on digital and on demand services.

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Megan Fox and Machine Gun Kelly's first day on set of 'Midnight in the Switchgrass': 'There was magic in that room,' says director - Yahoo...

It is hard to get excited after looking at American Public Education's (NASDAQ:APEI) recent performance, when its stock has declined 12% over the past three months. It is possible that the markets have ignored the company's differing financials and decided to lean-in to the negative sentiment. Stock prices are usually driven by a companys financial performance over the long term, and therefore we decided to pay more attention to the company's financial performance. Specifically, we decided to study American Public Education's ROE in this article.

Return on equity or ROE is an important factor to be considered by a shareholder because it tells them how effectively their capital is being reinvested. Simply put, it is used to assess the profitability of a company in relation to its equity capital.

Check out our latest analysis for American Public Education

Return on equity can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) Shareholders' Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for American Public Education is:

6.1% = US$25m US$401m (Based on the trailing twelve months to March 2021).

The 'return' is the yearly profit. That means that for every $1 worth of shareholders' equity, the company generated $0.06 in profit.

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company's future earnings. Based on how much of its profits the company chooses to reinvest or "retain", we are then able to evaluate a company's future ability to generate profits. Assuming everything else remains unchanged, the higher the ROE and profit retention, the higher the growth rate of a company compared to companies that don't necessarily bear these characteristics.

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At first glance, American Public Education's ROE doesn't look very promising. Next, when compared to the average industry ROE of 9.8%, the company's ROE leaves us feeling even less enthusiastic. For this reason, American Public Education's five year net income decline of 12% is not surprising given its lower ROE. However, there could also be other factors causing the earnings to decline. For instance, the company has a very high payout ratio, or is faced with competitive pressures.

That being said, we compared American Public Education's performance with the industry and were concerned when we found that while the company has shrunk its earnings, the industry has grown its earnings at a rate of 14% in the same period.

past-earnings-growth

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. Its important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company's expected earnings growth (or decline). By doing so, they will have an idea if the stock is headed into clear blue waters or if swampy waters await. Is American Public Education fairly valued compared to other companies? These 3 valuation measures might help you decide.

Overall, we have mixed feelings about American Public Education. While the company does have a high rate of reinvestment, the low ROE means that all that reinvestment is not reaping any benefit to its investors, and moreover, its having a negative impact on the earnings growth. With that said, we studied the latest analyst forecasts and found that while the company has shrunk its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to grow in the future. Are these analysts expectations based on the broad expectations for the industry, or on the company's fundamentals? Click here to be taken to our analyst's forecasts page for the company.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email editorial-team (at) simplywallst.com.

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Are American Public Education, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:APEI) Mixed Financials The Reason For Its Gloomy Performance on The Stock Market? - Yahoo Finance

WASHINGTON Certainties may be rare in Washington these days, but blowups between Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top medical adviser to President Biden, have become one of the few reliable features of life inside the Beltway, right up there with the relentless humidity of summer.

That much was made clear, once again, during a hearing of the Senate Health Committee on Tuesday, during which the two sparred over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic.

Paul accused Fauci of misrepresenting, in earlier testimony, the nature of U.S. government funding of the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, where some believe the virus originated as the result of a lab experiment gone awry. He ended his characteristically long question by reminding Fauci that it is a crime to lie to Congress.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., questions Dr. Anthony Fauci at a Senate Health Committee hearing on Tuesday. (J. Scott Applewhite, Pool via AP)

Fauci did not take to the suggestion kindly. I have not lied before the Congress, the veteran government immunologist responded. He rejected Pauls offer to retract his earlier testimony about U.S. funding of viral research into the pandemics shadowy beginnings.

Sen. Paul, you do not know what you are talking about, quite frankly, Fauci continued. And I want to say that officially.

Never one for niceties, Paul charged that Fauci was trying to obscure responsibility for the devastation the coronavirus has caused around the world.

From there, unsurprisingly, the tone escalated. I totally resent the lie that you are now propagating, Fauci snarled back at the senator.

There was shouting and gesticulating, with lots of heat but little light. Committee Chair Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., tried to intervene, to little effect.

Fauci testifies at Tuesday's hearing. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Pool via via Getty Images)

As evidence of his allegation, Paul cited a scientific research paper into bat viruses by a Wuhan researcher. The research in question had been partially supported by the National Institutes of Health. (In addition to serving as an adviser to the White House, Fauci is head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which is part of the NIH.)

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Fauci in turn told Paul, who is an ophthalmologist by training, that he had failed to understand the research, adding that it was molecularly impossible for the Wuhan Institute of Virology to have conducted the kind of research that would have led to the advent of SARS-CoV-2.

Paul has previously said that the NIH did not permit Chinese laboratories to use funds from the United States for gain-of-function research, which boosts viruses in order to study their behavior.

Conservatives have seized on Faucis email exchanges with other scientists which were made public as part of a Freedom of Information Act request to suggest he is hiding the complicity of the U.S. medical establishment. There is no evidence of such complicity, or of a cover-up, but the lack of cooperation from Beijing has allowed conspiracy theories about Fauci and others to proliferate.

If anybody is lying here, Senator, it is you, Fauci said near the end of their terse exchange, which, as he himself noted, fell into a somewhat predictable pattern.

Fauci responds in a terse exchange with Paul on Tuesday. (J. Scott Applewhite/Pool via AP)

Indeed, Fauci and Paul were not exactly friends before Tuesdays exchange. At a hearing in June 2020, Paul challenged Fauci on school closures, although Fauci had said he supported reopening schools for in-person instruction, provided proper preventive measures like mask wearing were taken.

Before answering the senator on that occasion, Fauci offered what appeared to be a good-natured smile, saying he was in lock agreement about school reopening.

The exchanges between them would grow more acrimonious, with ever fewer agreements and smiles. That may have had to do with conservatives growing hostility toward Fauci, who ran afoul of President Donald Trump, despite having served as his adviser.

In March 2021, Fauci and Paul argued at a Senate hearing on face masks, which had by then become the subject of an intense culture war but which were also widely accepted as a fact of pandemic life by most Americans. Paul wondered why Fauci and others who were vaccinated parade around in two masks for show, since vaccinated people appear to be at exceptionally low risk for either contracting or spreading the coronavirus.

I totally disagree with you, Fauci responded. He then went on a morning news show and described Paul as dead wrongon this point.

Paul in the heated exchange Tuesday. (Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times/Pool via AP)

Several weeks later, Paul confronted Fauci with the issue at the heart of Tuesdays exchange: whether the NIH inadvertently funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab that has been at the center of scrutiny over the origin of the pandemic. Such research is necessary, scientists say, to see how viruses evolve. But if that research is conducted in a laboratory with lax biosecurity standards, the danger of the virus escaping could increase substantially.

During that encounter, Fauci said Pauls accusation of potential impropriety was entirely and completely incorrect."

Fauci and NIH Director Francis Collins have both said the NIH did not fund gain-of-function research. The funding went through an intermediary called EcoHealth Alliance, a New York-based not-for-profit organization whose founder, Dr. Peter Daszak, has a close relationship with virologists in Wuhan and has vigorously defended them against accusations of wrongdoing.

Although conservatives like Paul have long championed the hypothesis that the virus escaped from the laboratory, the notion that human error is responsible for the coronavirus has gained traction with the American public.

President Biden has instructed the U.S. intelligence community to produce an assessment of how the pandemic originated. That assessment is expected by summers end.

Cover thumbnail photo illustration: Yahoo News; photos: Stefani Reynolds/The New York Times /Pool via AP

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Fauci to Rand Paul: 'If anybody is lying here, Senator, it is you' - Yahoo News

TOKYO On Friday, July 23, 2021, the Olympics will begin with reference after reference to a year that is, well, not 2021.

In fact, throughout Tokyo, 2020 is everywhere. Its on airport signs and road signs and flags, on uniforms and photographer bibs and lanyards, on taxis and Games-related vehicles and more. Even the WiFi network on an Olympics shuttle bus is named Sushi2020.

Because the 2021 Olympics are, officially, the 2020 Olympics. But why?

The answer, of course, stems from the postponement of the Games last March, from 2020 to 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, organizers agreed that the Games will keep the name Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020.

And that decision, for the most part, was a commercial decision.

There are many reasons, a Tokyo organizing committee source told Yahoo Sports. One of them, he said, was that last year in March, torches, medals, other branding items, and merchandise were already being made using the name Tokyo 2020 and a name change would have meant additional costs.

In other words, Olympic organizers had already committed millions upon millions of dollars to the "Tokyo 2020" brand. They were ready to sell physical representations of it t-shirts, flags, mascot stuffed animals, souvenirs of all kinds. They were also ready to sell it intangibly, backed by full-fledged marketing campaigns developed over multiple years.

National Stadium, where the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympics will be held, is branded with "Tokyo 2020" like everywhere else. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato)

The primary asset the IOC and Tokyo Organizing Committee sells is its intellectual property and the corresponding brand equity associated with the marks, logos, designations, symbols, etc., explained Michael Lynch, a veteran sports marketer who formerly managed Visas sponsorship of the Games. All that Olympic IP is branded 2020, including IOC and [organizing committee] creative, sponsor creative, advertising creative, promotional creative, licensed merchandise, tickets, on-site signage, events, you name it, all about to hit the market. It would be an enormous and unnecessary expense for all of this Olympic IP to be changed.

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And as Lynch mentioned, the expense wouldnt just hit organizers. It would hit their broadcast partners, their sponsors, anybody with a brand strategy related to the Olympics.

Some of them have developed creative rebrands, with logos that dub these the 202One Olympics, or that shape the inside of the second zero in 2020 as a 1.

(USA Swimming)

But the official branding remained Tokyo 2020, as it has been ever since the IOC awarded these Games to the Japanese capital way back on Sept. 7, 2013. Most Games stakeholders welcomed the decision to stick with the original name.

At the time of the decision, however, organizers hoped that 2021 would bring normalcy. That fans from around the globe would still travel to Tokyo to celebrate the resilience of humankind and to buy merch. Lots of it. Everything from clothing to chopsticks to umbrellas with the official Tokyo 2020 marks.

It had the potential to generate some $100 million, and much of it had already been manufactured. So organizers and licensed retailers stashed it away in warehouses, hoping it would fly off shelves come summer 2021.

Instead, they face massive losses because no fans will attend the Games at all. No tourists will descend on Tokyo. No locals will mill about outside stadiums and arenas, in bustling downtown areas and by Tokyo Bay. Many of the dozens of official merchandise shops throughout the host city have either closed or welcomed very few visitors. This aspect of the Tokyo 2020 strategy has been undone by the virus.

There was once a thought among some experts that the uniqueness of these Games, the first ever postponed, would make all that merchandise sellable as valuable collectors items. But the Olympics became so unpopular in Japan, and so fraught with controversy, that the brand likely has become irreversibly tarnished. Toyota recently pulled all its Japanese TV advertisements related to the Games.

Still, though, long before COVID, thousands of volunteer shirts and banners and other non-retail items were designed and made as if the 2020 Olympics were going to happen in 2020. And so they are, despite what calendars might tell you, still the 2020 Olympics.

More Olympics coverage from Yahoo Sports:

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Mystery Solved: Why the 2021 Olympics are still called the Tokyo 2020 Olympics - Yahoo Sports

The board of ACNB Corporation (NASDAQ:ACNB) has announced that it will pay a dividend on the 15th of September, with investors receiving US$0.25 per share. The dividend yield will be 3.6% based on this payment which is still above the industry average.

View our latest analysis for ACNB

If the payments aren't sustainable, a high yield for a few years won't matter that much. However, prior to this announcement, ACNB's dividend was comfortably covered by both cash flow and earnings. As a result, a large proportion of what it earned was being reinvested back into the business.

Over the next year, EPS could expand by 11.3% if recent trends continue. If the dividend continues on this path, the payout ratio could be 31% by next year, which we think can be pretty sustainable going forward.

historic-dividend

The company has a sustained record of paying dividends with very little fluctuation. Since 2011, the dividend has gone from US$0.76 to US$1.00. This implies that the company grew its distributions at a yearly rate of about 2.8% over that duration. While the consistency in the dividend payments is impressive, we think the relatively slow rate of growth is less attractive.

Investors could be attracted to the stock based on the quality of its payment history. We are encouraged to see that ACNB has grown earnings per share at 11% per year over the past five years. A low payout ratio and decent growth suggests that the company is reinvesting well, and it also has plenty of room to increase the dividend over time.

Overall, we like to see the dividend staying consistent, and we think ACNB might even raise payments in the future. Distributions are quite easily covered by earnings, which are also being converted to cash flows. All in all, this checks a lot of the boxes we look for when choosing an income stock.

It's important to note that companies having a consistent dividend policy will generate greater investor confidence than those having an erratic one. At the same time, there are other factors our readers should be conscious of before pouring capital into a stock. Now, if you want to look closer, it would be worth checking out our free research on ACNB management tenure, salary, and performance. Looking for more high-yielding dividend ideas? Try our curated list of strong dividend payers.

This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.

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ACNB (NASDAQ:ACNB) Has Re-Affirmed Its Dividend Of US$0.25 - Yahoo Finance