In 2022, Sean Combs received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BET Awards. As a new lawsuit filed by Casandra Ventura recounts, he thanked his former girlfriend and Bad Boy Records signee in his acceptance speech. “I have to give a special shoutout, thank you, love, to the people that was really there for me.” He named several people, including Ventura, better known as the R&B singer Cassie, “for holding me down in the dark times, love.”
In the suit, filed on Thursday in Manhattan federal court, Ventura said that she spent these times trapped by Combs in a yearslong cycle of abuse, violence, and sex trafficking. The complaint alleges a disturbing pattern of assault and retaliation that took place for the duration of their relationship beginning when a 37-year old Combs, an established power player in hip-hop, met Ventura as an aspiring 19-year old entertainer in 2005. He signed her to his high-flying label and within a few years, according to the suit, lured her into “an ostentatious, fast-paced, and drug-fueled lifestyle, and into a romantic relationship with him her boss, one of the most powerful men in the entertainment industry, and a vicious, cruel, and controlling man nearly two decades her senior.”
Ventura claimed in the suit that Combs repeatedly beat her and forced her to have sex with male prostitutes while he filmed the encounters. According to the suit, Combs described these encounters as “freak offs” designed to fulfill a fantasy he called “voyeurism,” and they often involved drug use that eventually sent Ventura on a path towards addiction. Towards the end of their relationship in 2018, Ventura said in the complaint, Combs forced his way into her home and raped her.
In one of the alleged “freak offs” in 2016, the suit said, Combs punched Ventura in the face and gave her a black eye. When he fell asleep and she tried to leave their Los Angeles hotel room, Ventura claimed, he woke up and followed her into the hallway, where he threw glass vases at her. According to the suit, Combs paid the hotel $50,000 for the footage.
“After years in silence and darkness,” Ventura said in a statement. “I am finally ready to tell my story, and to speak up on behalf of myself and for the benefit of other women who face violence and abuse in their relationships.” She filed the lawsuit under the Adult Survivors Act in New York, enacted last year, which grants alleged victims of sexual abuse a one-year window, ending next week, to file civil complaints in instances where the statute of limitations has passed.
“Mr. Combs vehemently denies these offensive and outrageous allegations,” Combs’s attorney Ben Brafman said in a statement. “For the past 6 months, Mr. Combs, has been subjected to Ms. Ventura’s persistent demand of $30 million, under the threat of writing a damaging book about their relationship, which was unequivocally rejected as blatant blackmail. Despite withdrawing her initial threat, Ms. Ventura has now resorted to filing a lawsuit riddled with baseless and outrageous lies, aiming to tarnish Mr. Combs’ reputation and seeking a pay day.”
In response to Brafman’s statement, Ventura’s attorney Douglas Wigdor said, “Mr. Comb’s offered Ms. Ventura eight figures to silence her and prevent the filing of this lawsuit. She rejected his efforts and decided to give a voice to all woman who suffer in silence. Ms. Ventura should be applauded for her bravery.”
In 2011, during a rough patch in Combs and Ventura’s relationship, according to the suit, Ventura briefly dated the rapper Kid Cudi. When Combs returned from a trip, the suit said, he demanded that Ventura participate in a “freak off.” During this encounter, Ventura claimed, he found emails between her and Kid Cudi on her phone and lunged at her with a corkscrew placed between his fingers. Ventura ran away to Kid Cudi’s home, she said, before returning because she felt that she wouldn’t be able to escape Combs and his staff, whom the suit described as his “network of enforcers.” According to the suit, Combs then hit her several times and kicked her in the back.
The following year, the suit said, Combs told Ventura he was going to blow up Kid Cudi’s Car with the rapper and his friends home when it happened. “Around that time,” the suit said, “Kid Cudi’s car exploded in his driveway.” (“This is all true,” a spokesperson for Kid Cudi told the New York Times.)
“Mr. Combs asserted complete control over Ms. Ventura’s personal and professional life, thereby ensuring her inability to escape his hold,” the suit said. “He provided unprecedented avenues for success for the aspiring artist, but in return, demanded obedience, loyalty, and silence.”
A Texas woman was sentenced to life in prison for her role in physically abusing her boyfriend’s twin daughters, resulting in one’s death, the district attorney’s office told Newsweek.
After less than an hour of deliberation, a Brazos County jury on Thursday found 43-year-old Jessica Bundren guilty of physically abusing her boyfriend’s 6-year-old daughters, resulting in the death of one of the little girls, Brazos County Assistant District Attorney Kara Comte told Newsweek in an email interview on Saturday night.
Bundren, of Bryan, Texas, was arrested in 2020, accused of physically abusing both girls for not eating fast enough and wetting the bed, local authorities said. Arianna Rose Battelle died on October 27, 2020, as a result of the injuries she suffered, but her twin sister survived her injuries.
Bundren is currently being held in the Brazos County Jail after being convicted on a charge of Injury to a Child – Intentionally/Knowing Serious Bodily Injury, Comte said. A jury on Friday found that Bundren should serve the maximum sentence of life in a state penitentiary and be fined $10,000, Comte said, adding that Bundren has not gone to trial yet on an additional charge for injuring the surviving twin, Patience.
A Brazos County Grand Jury indicted the girls’ father, Justin Hopper, on two counts of Injury to a Child with intent to cause bodily injuries in December 2020. Hopper is scheduled for a status hearing on December 14, Comte said.
A Texas woman was sentenced to life in prison on November 3, 2023, for her role in physically abusing her boyfriend’s 6-year-old twin daughters, resulting in one’s death. Arianna Rose Battelle (pictured) died on October 27, 2020, authorities said. Courtesy of Kimberly Elias
Dr. Evan Matshes, a Forensic Pathologist who was called to testify in Bundren’s trail by her defense team, confirmed that Arianna was beaten to death but could not verify who dealt the blows that took Arianna’s life.
“She was tortured,” Matshes said. “She may have been sexually assaulted as part of that process. Her death was slow and painful.”
However, the forensic expert said that “scientifically” it’s impossible to tell who inflicted the fatal injuries, saying it’s “not the job of the forensic pathologist to determine who did what, it’s our job to determine what happened.”
Comte said while Bundren has never confessed to the crimes that she did admit to “disciplining” the girls by “spankings” or “swats.” Police responding to the 911 call the day Arianna died said the little girl was found with what appeared to be welts and puncture wounds made by a belt.
Patience told investigators that she and Arianna would be punished if they ate lunch too slowly or wet the bed and said that both Bundren and their father would use a belt and paddle, according to the arrest report by Bryan police.
Police noted in the report that Patience had a black eye, a scab on her neck and “appeared to be in pain and moved with difficulty.” She also had two broken fingers, telling investigators that her father used a wooden paddle to hit her hand.
Comte told Newsweek that the abuse was never reported because it happened during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Since no one had seen the girls, Comte said it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how long the abuse occurred, saying investigators believe it may have started somewhere in July or August of 2020 and Arianna died in October.
“The family did not see the girls because it was during Covid and they were keeping the girls away from people, including school,” Comte said. “They were attending school virtually.”
Kimberly Elias, grandmother to Arianna and Patience, told Newsweek in an interview on Saturday night that while she is “wholeheartedly grateful” that Bundren was given a life sentence that the punishment doesn’t ease the pain of Arianna’s death.
Elias, 46, said during the Bundren’s trial last week, the twins’ family heard graphic testimony and saw horrific photos of the girls’ “beaten, bruised and tortured little bodies” that they will never be able to erase from their minds. She told Newsweek that she is the ex-wife of the twins’ paternal grandfather and will always be the girls’ “MiMi.”
She said that without Arianna, the family will never be at peace or “be whole again.”
“That option was ripped away from us by two monsters,” Elias said. “As parents, we are supposed to love and protect our children from the monsters, yet they were the monsters. We’ve listened to testimony all last week and seen pictures that we will never be able to erase from our minds. Honestly, it’s been a living hell from the beginning, but we are grateful that someone is finally paying for this crime.”
Elias said that while most media outlets identified Bundren is the girls’ stepmother, she was their father’s live-in girlfriend. Elias said that Hopper had custody of the twins at the time of Arianna’s death.
She told Newsweek that Arianna was the sweetest little girl, who was “full of life and love.” Elias said that Arianna and Patience were best friends.
“With the actions of these monsters there is now half of a whole left,” she said. “Patience will never be the same without Arianna.”
Patience (left) and Arianna Battelle (right) of Bryan, Texas. The then 6-year-old twins faced physical abuse, resulting in Arianna’s death in 2020. The girls’ grandmother told Newsweek that “with her being a twin, she had a built-in best friend. With the actions of these monsters, there is now half of a whole left.” Courtesy of Kimberly Elias
In the three years since losing her twin sister and recovering from her physical injuries, Patience is “doing better,” her grandmother said, adding that the mental and emotional toll of the ordeal is something she will carry with her for the rest of her life.
“She is with a really, really good foster family who she absolutely loves with her whole heart, and she is wanting to be adopted by them,” Elias said. “This past birthday she stated she didn’t want a birthday party; she wanted an Adoption Party and I fully support that.”
Elias said that Patience has been with the foster family for three years and has a “very stable and happy life.”
“That makes me so happy and excited for her,” she said. “I’ve seen the smile and the light back in her eyes.”
Elias said that the girls’ father deserves to be convicted and face the maximum sentence for his role in their abuse.
“Justice has already whispered in his ear ‘I’m coming for you next,’” she said.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
In photos Ohashi posted on her Instagram Stories earlier this week, the retired gymnast appears to be dressed as Mera, the character played by Heard in “Aquaman,” accompanied by a man who appears to be dressed as Capt. Jack Sparrow, the character played by Depp in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise. In at least one of the photos, Ohashi indicated they were portraying “Johnny Depp and Amber Heard.”
One of the photos shows Ohashi with her hands around her companion’s throat.
“I am truly sorry for the decision I made with my halloween costume/post,” Ohashi wrote on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Friday afternoon. “It was insensitive and thoughtless. As someone who has experienced and spoken out against abuse, I understand how wrong it was and expect more of myself. I hope you can accept my apology. I will be better.
I am truly sorry for the decision I made with my halloween costume/post. It was insensitive and thoughtless. As someone who has experienced and spoken out against abuse, I understand how wrong it was and expect more of myself. I hope you can accept my apology. I will be better.
Ohashi competed for the Bruins from 2015-2019 and became known for the viral videos of her performing impossible-looking and perfectly executed gymnastics routines, always with a broad smile on her face. She performed in Simone Biles’ “Gold Over America” tour in 2021 and mentions “photography/poetry” (not gymnastics) as interests in her Instagram bio.
Tesla Inc. was sued Thursday by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which alleges the EV maker violated federal law by “tolerating widespread and ongoing racial harassment of its Black employees” at its Fremont, Calif., plant, and by retaliating against those opposing the harassment.
Black employees at the Fremont factory, Tesla’s TSLA, +2.44%
first assembly plant and for years its only vehicle-manufacturing facility in the U.S., “have routinely endured racial abuse, pervasive stereotyping and hostility” as well as having racial slurs hurled at them, the lawsuit alleges.
“Slurs were used casually and openly in high-traffic areas and at worker hubs,” the EEOC said. Black employees “regularly” saw graffiti with slurs, swastikas, threats and nooses throughout the facility, including on desks, in bathroom stalls and elevators, according to the suit.
Tesla, which disbanded its media relations team during the pandemic, did not immediately return a request for comment. In August, SpaceX, another one of Tesla’s Chief Executive Elon Musk’s companies, was sued by the Justice Department over its hiring practices.
Employees who spoke up against the racial hostility suffered retaliations that included being fired or transferred, the EEOC said.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California after attempts at reaching a settlement before the litigation. It seeks compensatory and punitive damages as well as back pay for the affected workers. It also seeks changes to Tesla’s employment practices to prevent discrimination in the future, the EEOC said.
Shares of Tesla have doubled so far this year, compared with an advance of around 12% for the S&P 500 index SPX.
The first Model S rolled out of the Fremont factory in 2012, and the plant now makes Model S, Model 3, Model X and Model Y vehicles, with capacity to make more than a million vehicles a year as well as energy products and battery cells.
Tesla opened up its second U.S. vehicle-making factory in the Austin, Texas, area in the spring of 2022.
Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy took aim at social-media companies during the second GOP presidential debate, saying Wednesday night that he would aim to ban anyone age 16 or under from using those companies’ platforms.
“If you’re 16 years old or under, you should not be using an addictive social-media product — period,” said Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur who ranks fourth in GOP primary polls, according a RealClearPolitics average.
He said this move would help with improving mental health and stopping the fentanyl epidemic. Earlier, Ramaswamy had talked about a mom and dad in Iowa whose son died after the teen bought Percocet laced with fentanyl through Snapchat.
That type of ban would hit companies such as Meta Platforms META, -0.41%,
the parent of Instagram and Facebook; Snap SNAP, +1.80%,
the parent of Snapchat; X, formerly known as Twitter; and ByteDance, the Chinese parent of TikTok.
Ramaswamy has started using TikTok in his White House campaign, and another GOP presidential candidate, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, attacked him over that at another point in the debate.
“TikTok is one of the most dangerous social-media apps we could have,” she said. “Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber.”
A nascent category of mental health treatments is getting a major cash infusion.
Blake Mycoskie, founder of the canvas-footwear phenomenon TOMS Shoes, has committed to giving $100 million to support psychedelic research and access, Mycoskie told MarketWatch in an exclusive interview. The money will help fund academic institutions investigating psychedelics’ potential to treat anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental-health issues, as well as nonprofits helping to connect patients in need with psychedelic treatments.
Traditional psychedelics include hallucinogens like LSD and psilocybin, or “magic” mushrooms–recently legalized in Oregon and Colorado. Other drugs that can alter mood and perception–such as ketamine and MDMA, also known as ecstasy–aren’t classical psychedelics but are broadly included in the research and policy discussions generating a surge of interest in this class of treatments. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for example, has granted psilocybin and MDMA “breakthrough therapy” status, a designation designed to expedite development and review of drugs for serious conditions, and could approve MDMA for treatment of PTSD as soon as next year.
Given the rapid developments in the field, ”we really need to get this right, and we really need to have these foundations and nonprofits funded properly,” therapists trained, and clinics open and running smoothly, Mycoskie said. “I felt a real sense of urgency,” he said, and asked his wealth manager, “what’s the most that I can give?”
The $100 million answer to that question amounts to about a quarter of Mycoskie’s net worth and marks a major milestone in psychedelics’ delicate image transformation. Shedding some of their dangerous-party-drug reputation, psychedelics are gaining attention from top pharmacologists, the scientific community, biotech companies and investors who see them as a critical part of the solution to America’s mental health crisis.
Cracked open
Mycoskie, 46, said his interest in psychedelics dates back to 2017, when a friend returning from a trip to Central America described his incredible experience with ayahuasca, a plant-based psychedelic brewed into a tea. As an entrepreneur under intense pressure to perform, Mycoskie said, he decided to try it for himself. The experience “cracked me open, and it connected me more to my faith in God, made me feel that we were all connected and everything was fine and perfect,” he said. “I came back just feeling like, wow, that was more powerful than any therapy I’d ever done.” He later tried MDMA-assisted therapy, he said, which also helped him process issues that traditional talk therapy had left unresolved.
Realizing how many people could benefit from similar treatments, Mycoskie started giving money to academic groups and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, a nonprofit organization. He also got involved in last year’s Colorado ballot initiative, which legalized psilocybin and several other psychedelic substances, including ibogaine, which has shown potential to treat substance-use disorders. Mycoskie has already given about $10 million to psychedelic research and access, he said, and plans to give about $5 million annually for 18 more years.
Mycoskie was a bit squeamish at first, he acknowledges, about publicly backing research on drugs that are largely illegal. “Am I going to get held up at TSA every time I go through the airport?” he remembers thinking. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration categorizes LSD and MDMA alongside heroin as “schedule one” drugs, defined as “drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” But with growing public awareness and acceptance of the drugs’ potential as mental-health treatments, he said, he felt emboldened to make a big public commitment, and “the research has caught up,” he said. “It’s important that people like myself put their name out there and their money out there to show that this really is a path forward,” he said.
Mycoskie’s $100 million commitment “is the biggest that we’ve ever seen in the psychedelics space,” said Joe Green, president of the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative, a nonprofit supporting philanthropy in the field, and a MAPS board member. Now that research has made great strides to support use of the medicines as mental-health treatments, that money can help ensure that “these actually come to the world in a safe and beneficial way,” Green said. With certain treatments legalized in Oregon and Colorado, for example, “the system requires licensed guides, facilitators, licensed service centers,” he said. “It’s not like cannabis medical–you won’t be able to take the mushrooms outside the service center.”
Psychedelic therapeutics market could be worth more than $8.3 billion by 2028
Mycoskie plans to publicize his pledge at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies’ psychedelic science conference–billed as “the largest psychedelic conference in history”–this week in Denver. On the agenda: Sessions ranging from state policy and regulatory considerations to clinical trials of psilocybin- and MDMA-assisted therapy and “sex and psychedelics: weaving altered states for healing and pleasure.”
The news comes as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing for new funding for research into the use of psychedelics to treat PTSD in military service members as part of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which the House Armed Services Committee will consider Wednesday.
Already, public companies like Atai Life Sciences ATAI, -6.91%,
Compass Pathways CMPS, -3.37%
and Cybin CYBN, +6.81%
are developing therapies based on psychedelic substances. The psychedelic therapeutics market could be worth more than $8.3 billion by 2028, according to InsightAce Analytic. Even the federal government is throwing money at this niche, funding efforts to develop psychedelic mental-health treatments without the hallucinogenic side effects.
More than one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, and less than half of the roughly 58 million adults with any mental illness are receiving treatment. Suicide rates, which have been on a long upward trajectory, declined briefly between 2018 and 2020 before returning to peak levels in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nine out of 10 U.S. adults believe the country is suffering a mental health crisis, according to a survey last year by CNN and KFF, a health policy nonprofit. And commonly prescribed antidepressants, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) don’t work well for many patients.
Nushama, a New York City wellness center offering ketamine-based therapy.
Courtesy of Nushama and Costas Picadas
Mental illness “is truly an epidemic, and we are losing the fight,” said Dylan Beynon, CEO and founder of Mindbloom, which offers a telehealth ketamine treatment program. While there are some existing solutions that are helping to bend the curve, he said, more research and educational support for providers and patients is needed, he said.
Indeed, some substantial hurdles still separate psychedelic mental-health treatments from many of the patients they might benefit, including a lack of insurance coverage for the currently legal treatments and debate over how to administer them safely. In the case of ketamine, for example, which is FDA-approved as an anesthetic and used off-label as a mental-health treatment, some providers favor in-person guided sessions while others, like Beynon, advocate for telehealth prescribing–a model that boomed during the pandemic.
Some experts have lately warned that the practice of psychedelic medicine may be getting ahead of the science. Given the growing public and commercial interest, “there is the risk that use of psychedelics for purported clinical goals may outpace evidence-based research and regulatory approval,” the American Psychiatric Association said last year in a position statement on psychedelic and “empathogenic” agents–a category that includes MDMA.
Mycoskie has also made some investments in the psychedelics space, although he said profits aren’t his motivation. He has invested in Mind Medicine Inc. MNMD, -0.50%,
which says it is developing “psychedelic inspired medicines” that aim to treat the underlying causes of distress in the brain. And Mycoskie helped fund a public benefit corporation linked with MAPS, which is taking MDMA through the FDA approval process–an investment that will pay dividends when the treatment is commercialized, he said.
Providers currently offering ketamine treatments say they’re eager to expand into MDMA and other therapies in the category as soon as they’re legal. Mindbloom, for example, currently offers a ketamine treatment program that’s available through telehealth in several dozen states and aims to start offering MDMA-assisted therapy late next year after FDA approval is finalized, Beynon said. Psilocybin-assisted therapy could come a couple of years after that, he said.
Nushama, a New York City psychedelic wellness center that offers ketamine-based therapy, delivered through in-person IV infusions, also hopes to expand into MDMA when it’s approved, said co-founder Jay Godfrey.
Treatment without the trip
Still on the horizon: New treatments that could produce psychedelic medicines’ mental-health benefits without the trip. University of North Carolina School of Medicine pharmacology professor Dr. Bryan Roth is leading an effort to create new medications for depression, anxiety and substance abuse that work similarly to psychedelics but without the hallucinogenic, disorienting side effects. His effort is backed by a $27-million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Such treatments, Roth said, could help the many patients for whom such psychedelic effects are unappealing or ill-advised–such as military service members. “You would never want to give psilocybin or ketamine to somebody who has a gun,” Roth said.
Having worked with Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD while training as a psychiatrist earlier in his career, Roth said, he’s keenly aware of the need for safe and effective treatments. “There was nothing we could give them for their symptoms,” he said. “The most we could do was give them medications to stop their ability to have dreams, so they wouldn’t have nightmares. That was basically it.”
“Undoing 52 years of propaganda is a heavy lift,” said Nushama co-founder Jay Godfrey.
Costas Picadas
Roth’s team has already developed compounds that have shown antidepressant effects without psychedelic side effects in mice, he said. The team is now working to find a clinical candidate suitable for testing in humans, he said.
Treatments that can help “break bad emotional or psychological patterns without scary, high-friction psychedelic experiences would be a great thing for patients, providers and the healthcare system,” said Mindbloom’s Beynon.
Much more remains to be done to reduce the stigma associated with psychedelics, experts say. It has been 52 years since President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one,” and billions of dollars have been spent since then telling people that “these medicines are dangerous, that they’re addictive, and that they’ll fry your brains,” Godfrey said. “Undoing 52 years of propaganda is a heavy lift, but one thing I’m optimistic about is that the outcomes are starting to speak for themselves.”
HAYTI, Mo. (KAIT) – An ex-Missouri early learning center worker is behind bars after police said she was caught on video abusing her students.
According to the Hayti Police Department, on Wednesday, Nov. 2, officers received a report from the Early Learning Center that one of their teachers, 23-year-old Gladys Johnson of Caruthersville, was seen in the video striking, grabbing, choking, and cursing at the students.
A news release stated soon after police were able to confirm the allegations, Johnson was found and arrested.
Johnson is being held at the Pemiscot County Justice Center, charged with abuse or neglect of a child, and serious emotional or physical injury. No bond has been set.
Region 8 News will continue to follow this story for new details.
U.S. consumers continue to face the highest prices in decades for gasoline and other products, but if they’re in a state that allows sales of cannabis, at least they’re paying less for legal weed.
Amid price rivalries — not only between legal cannabis companies but also against sales from the illicit market — the cost of wholesale pot has plunged and supply has climbed.
The evidence is clear in the country’s largest legal cannabis market, California, which notched a whopping $1 billion in sales in the past year.
California has seen cannabis prices as low as $100 a pound, a fraction of the average cost of $786 for an untrimmed, dried pound in the state, according to a report released Tuesday by Leafly.
As farmers in California increased pot production by 63 metric tons, the value of the state’s weed harvest has dropped in the face of price competition.
“Consumers are seeing unheard-of-bargains in 2022, with $20 retail eighths [of an ounce] now the norm,” Leafy said in its Cannabis Harvest Report.
Leafly
Currently 19 states and the District of Colombia allow sales of cannabis to adults, and initiatives are on the ballot in five more states.
While cheaper prices make cannabis more affordable for consumers, they’re not considered good news for cannabis operators.
One of the largest U.S. cannabis companies, Green Thumb Industries Inc. GTBIF, +1.58%,
earlier this week reported lower price compression its third-quarter results.
Citing industry data from BDSA Analytics, Green Thumb CEO Ben Kovler said U.S. cannabis sales are up 3% while unit sales have risen 22%. That pricing dynamic “shows you the the price deflation” in cannabis, Kovler told MarketWatch.
“Price deflation at a time with massive inflation it makes it hard to operate when costs go up,” Kovler said.
To soften the impact of lower prices, Green Thumb focuses on the more lucrative premium end of the market. It has also worked to increase wholesale production efficiency and has taken an aggressive approach on procurement and goods purchases.
The efforts helped the company generate gross margins slightly above its internal 50% target in itsthird-quarter results, even as it continues to face inflationary pressure on packaging and labor.
Fighting price competition
As legal cannabis companies compete for market share while absorbing a range of costs including regulatory compliance efforts and taxes, sellers on the illicit market — who pay none of those costs — continue to undercut them.
The U.S. Cannabis Council, an industry advocacy group, this week launched a Buy Legal campaign with backing from cannabis businesses — some of them minority-owned — to encourage adult cannabis consumers to purchase only from state-licensed businesses.
The effort has drawn support from New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy as well as NBA veteran and cannabis entrepreneur Al Harrington, who is CEO of Viola.
“Now more than ever it’s imperative to educate consumers on the importance of buying regulated, safe products,” Harrington said in a statement.
The Buy Legal effort was unveiled just ahead of the Black CannaBiz Expo in New Orleans, which held a panel on the topic with Anacostia Organics Owner and CEO Linda Mercado Greene, as well as Josephine & Billies CEO Whitney Beatty and Keya Kellum, director of marketing and procurement at Harvest of Ohio.
An industry with big numbers
All told, legal U.S. cannabis farmers grew 2,834 metric tons of cannabis, according to the Leafly Cannabis Harvest Report 2022. The wholesale value of the market was about $5 billion.
That figure makes cannabis the sixth-largest cash crop in the country after corn, soybeans, hay, wheat and cotton.
After California, the states that generate the most dollars from legal wholesale cannabis are Colorado ($687 million), Michigan ($551 million) and Oregon ($500 million), according to the Leafly study.
The 15 U.S. states that currently allow adult-use cannabis stores contain 13,297 active legal cannabis farms with tens of thousands of full-time workers, the study said.
“The story in 2022 is all about rising production and falling prices,” the Leafly study said. “As the legal harvest continued to ramp up in legal states, the average price of cannabis fell over the past twelve months.”
According to Case, a disturbing incident provided yet another reminder of her vulnerability as a woman in the male-dominated world of gaming.
Since moving to Dallas, Case had become friends with an older guy in the industry who helped her navigate the nascent business and plan her career. But the man was “always just skirting the edge of inappropriate in a way that felt uncomfortable,” she says, making comments about how easily he could fall in love with her, despite the fact that he was married. He frequently told her to lose weight because it would help her image.
Mindful of his power and influence, Case tried to shrug it off. One afternoon, Case alleges, he took her for lunch at his usual spot to talk business and strategy. Afterward, they headed out to his car so he could drive her home. Once the doors were shut, the mood changed. He asked her to pull down her pants, she says, and show him her vagina. He “commanded me, ‘Show me what you’ve got. I want to see it,’” Case says. “He just would not let up,” she says.
As she sat frozen, she says, she thought, “If I’m not the cool girl who goes along, what am I going to give up? Am I going to be on the outside? That was my fear. It felt like one thing on this continuum of constantly being expected to expose myself or otherwise be on display. I just thought that’s how the world was. The story I told myself was: I’m strong and I am a survivor and I just do what I have to do.” So she did, pulling down her pants in the car in silence as he watched. “He didn’t touch me but I definitely felt, like, trapped,” she says, “It just felt like he was sort of leering at me.” Then she pulled her pants back up and said she had to go.
In July 1997, Case scored her biggest win yet: a job as a game tester at Romero’s new studio, Ion Storm. With a multimillion-dollar publishing deal from Eidos, the British behemoth behind the best-selling Tomb Raider franchise, Romero had made it to the top of the industry, and downtown Dallas. Ion leased the 22,500-square-foot, glass-ceilinged penthouse of the Texas Commerce Building, and transformed it into what a press release called “the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory of Gaming!” When Case stepped out of the emerald-green elevator doors onto the penthouse floor, she felt more like Dorothy entering Oz. As clouds floated above the glass ceiling, she passed vintage arcade games, a movie theater, a custom deathmatching arena with big shiny screens, and a snack room stacked with Bawls soda, Milk Duds, and Cup-O-Noodles. Throughout the maze of corrugated steel cubicles, at every oversized monitor, were her people: gamers, dozens of them. Though she was outnumbered by guys as usual, she felt as much a part of their team as ever. “I thought it was fucking awesome,” she says.
But as the sun overhead turned to darkness, a harsher reality set in. With nearly 100 employees, millions spent on renovations, and no game release in sight, Romero’s team was working 12-hour days, six days a week. That explained the sleeping bags and pillows under the desks, which I saw myself when I was there profiling Romero for Salon. Case returned with a packed suitcase and camped under her desk for two weeks. She felt determined to prove herself, and land her dream job as a game designer.
But the pressure kept building. For a year, Romero had been endlessly touting Daikatana’s impending release. This included a notorious ad in major gaming magazines that warned, “John Romero’s About to Make You His Bitch.” Romero’s spokesperson said he disavowed the ad at the time, saying it wasn’t his idea and that he regrets not preventing it. But the damage was done. It wasn’t the misogyny of the ad that bothered gamers so much. It was the macho posturing about an increasingly delayed game that was starting to feel like vaporware. The man who’d perfected the art of trash-talking in gaming now found himself being savaged by the gaming bloggers and press.
Just before Thanksgiving 1998, Case and few others took Romero to P.F. Chang’s for an intervention of sorts. “We heard a rumor that your entire Daikatana team is going to leave tomorrow,” Case told him. The next day, they did—a devastating blow that made the haters hate even harder. But it had one silver lining: Case got promoted to a job designing levels for the game. “I was ecstatic,” she says. “I felt like this brotherhood of designers had accepted me.”
Romero was interested in more than her design skills. Amid all the strife inside the company, they’d grown close. Both were gamers at heart, and both were familiar with life under siege. He was 31 now, with a newborn daughter, but his troubles at work spilled into tensions at home, and he and his wife soon separated.
One night, he and Stevie went to dinner. “We were sitting on a curb after eating dinner or something, having some wine, and he kissed me,” she says. “That was it.” Case and Romero tried to keep their relationship secret at work while they raced to get Daikatana out the door. “He was supersmart, hilarious, goofy,” Case says, “The whole thing that made him a gamer—the intelligence, and the wit, and the playfulness—that was just so fun. I felt like it was somebody that got me very deeply, good and bad. Everything about who I was.”
Their bond grew stronger in the face of mounting adversity. In January 1999, as I later reported in Masters of Doom, the Dallas Observer published a scathing exposé of Ion Storm’s work culture drawn from leaked internal emails. “The place where the ‘designer’s vision is king’ has turned into a toxic mix of prima donnas and personality cults,” the article declared. Then, in April, it emerged that the Columbine High School shooters had been avid fans of Doom. A national uproar over violent video games ensued.
By the time Case and Romero showed up to that year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, the annual gaming convention in Los Angeles, the baggy-jeaned KillCreek of before was no longer. Standing arm in arm with Romero, in his black leather pants, mesh black shirt, and long silver chain, Case had completed her transition from corn-fed tomboy to video-game vixen. Dressed in a tight baby-blue shirt and black pants, she’d dyed her hair blonde, dropped 50 pounds, and surgically enlarged her breasts. To the hordes of autograph-seeking fans at the expo, Romero and Case had become gaming’s It couple.
Three adults have been arrested after a young child was found locked in a dog kennel Wednesday morning, deputies said. The Davidson County Sheriff’s Office received an anonymous tip about a young child being locked in a cage overnight.Deputies then responded to the address on Cress Road and found a 9-year-old child locked in a dog kennel.The kennel was secured with a padlock.Deputies forced the cage open and EMS arrived on the scene to administer aid.Inside the residence, deputies found Sarah Starr, 30, and two other children.These children were also examined by EMS, but had no obvious injuries.Detectives contacted Davidson County Social Services and secured a search warrant for the property.Following an investigation, Jonathan Starr, 32, and Sarah Starr were arrested and charged with felony child abuse, misdemeanor child abuse and false imprisonment. They were both placed under a $30,000 bond.Later, Shelly Barnes, 56, was arrested in this incident and charged with the following:Felony child abuseMisdemeanor child abuseFalse ImprisonmentPossession of a firearm by a felonMaintaining a dwelling place for controlled substancesBarnes was issued a $60,000 bond.The 9-year-old child was transported to Brenner Children’s Hospital for evaluation and released later that day.Two more children, who lived at the residence, were located at school.All five of the children were entered into protective custody of Davidson County Social Services.Deputies said that this is an active and ongoing investigation.This is a developing story, check back with WXII for more updates.
LEXINGTON, N.C. —
Three adults have been arrested after a young child was found locked in a dog kennel Wednesday morning, deputies said.
The Davidson County Sheriff’s Office received an anonymous tip about a young child being locked in a cage overnight.
Deputies then responded to the address on Cress Road and found a 9-year-old child locked in a dog kennel.
The kennel was secured with a padlock.
Deputies forced the cage open and EMS arrived on the scene to administer aid.
Inside the residence, deputies found Sarah Starr, 30, and two other children.
These children were also examined by EMS, but had no obvious injuries.
Detectives contacted Davidson County Social Services and secured a search warrant for the property.
Following an investigation, Jonathan Starr, 32, and Sarah Starr were arrested and charged with felony child abuse, misdemeanor child abuse and false imprisonment.
They were both placed under a $30,000 bond.
This content is imported from Facebook.
You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
Later, Shelly Barnes, 56, was arrested in this incident and charged with the following:
Felony child abuse
Misdemeanor child abuse
False Imprisonment
Possession of a firearm by a felon
Maintaining a dwelling place for controlled substances
Barnes was issued a $60,000 bond.
The 9-year-old child was transported to Brenner Children’s Hospital for evaluation and released later that day.
Two more children, who lived at the residence, were located at school.
All five of the children were entered into protective custody of Davidson County Social Services.
Deputies said that this is an active and ongoing investigation.
This is a developing story, check back with WXII for more updates.
This content is imported from Facebook.
You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
DETROIT, Mich. (WNEM) – Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Michigan Humane are teaming up to investigate and prosecute cases of animal abuse.
Nessel’s office said large-scale, multi-jurisdictional, well-organized fighting rings and similar operations require exceptional resources for investigation and prosecution. Her department will provide support and resources to Michigan Humane and its agents in pursuit of perpetrators.
“I know most Michiganders think of their pets as family members and subjecting those family members to abuse is incomprehensible,” Nessel said. “Animal abuse is cruel and sadistic. It is also a crime that is often associated with other serious criminal activity, including domestic violence, illegal possession of firearms, illegal gambling, drug possession and large-scale animal abuse and fighting rings. I am proud to partner with Michigan Humane to prosecute these offenders.”
“Animal cruelty isn’t an animal issue. It is a human issue. The partnership between Michigan Humane and the Michigan Attorney General’s Office will strengthen our ability to address animal cruelty towards creating healthier and safer communities for everyone,” Michigan Humane President and CEO Matt Pepper said.
Nessel and Michigan Humane previously partnered to raise awareness for puppy scams.
Actor Angelina Jolie alleged in a complaint filed Tuesday that Brad Pitt physically attacked her and their children during a flight on the couple’s private jet from France to California in September 2016, several days before she filed for divorce.
In court documents obtained by The New York Times, Jolie’s lawyers claim Pitt “choked one of the children and struck another in the face.” They also say Pitt began yelling at Jolie in a private bathroom and “grabbed Jolie by the head and shook her,” and then “grabbed her shoulders and shook her again before pushing her into the bathroom wall.”
Pitt then allegedly “punched the ceiling of the plane numerous times, prompting Jolie to leave the bathroom.” The court filings also state that Pitt lunged at one of the children after the child called him a “prick.”
After the FBI investigated the incident, Pitt was cleared of wrongdoing.
The new details emerge after Pitt sued Jolie in February over a winerythey once co-owned, alleging that Jolie violated contractual agreements by selling her stake to an “aggressive third-party competitor.” The two had purchased a controlling stake in Château Miraval Winery in Correns, France, in 2008.
Jolie’s lawyers say that she sold her stake in October 2021 to Russian oligarch and Tenute del Mondo owner Yuri Shelfer after Pitt demanded that she sign a nondisclosure agreement to prevent her from talking about their marriage.
Jolie previously declined to share specific details of Pitt’s alleged abuse. In September 2021, while still moving through their divorce battle, Jolie told The Guardian that she feared for the safety of her family during her marriage to Pitt, but stopped short of sharing why.
“I’m not the kind of person who makes decisions like the decisions I had to make lightly,” she told The Guardian in 2021. “It took a lot for me to be in a position where I felt I had to separate from the father of my children.”
The couple married in August 2014 and have been legally separated since September 2016.
WANTAGH, N.Y., January 18, 2018 (Newswire.com)
– The recent news stories about Dr. Larry Nassar allegedly molesting as many as 125 young girls demonstrate that that we can’t always trust our clinicians. Yet, we live in a society where we too often hear, “No medical professionals wake up in the morning wanting to harm their patients.”
Child abuse by medical professionals is not common, thank goodness, but it does happen. That’s just one reason why Pulse Center for Patient Safety Education & Advocacy (CPSEA) goes into high schools and encourages young people to open up about their experiences and talk with each other about their patient/clinician relationships.
“This should be a relationship of trust where a young person can be treated with respect and dignity. . .”
Ilene Corina, President, PULSE Center for Patient Safety Education & Advocacy
By high school age, children should be prepared to visit their doctor alone. They need to share information that they may not want their parents or another adult to hear. This should be a relationship of trust where a young person can be treated with respect and dignity, can ask hard questions and disclose the most difficult concerns: depression, sex, drugs etc.
“I had an early encounter with two sisters who called their doctor ‘creepy’ during a teen discussion about medical care and preparing to see their doctor,” explains Ilene Corina, a patient safety advocate and educator for Pulse CPSEA. “This experience disclosed problems in the relationship so I started teaching patient safety to young people, with the support and guidance of qualified medical professionals.”
Other topics Pulse CPSEA addresses with classes as early as middle school are preparing for the doctor’s visit with questions; appropriately and fully explaining symptoms for the best diagnosis; and medication safety. The presentations are fun and interactive and leave classes recognizing the importance of becoming “Informed and Involved” patients.
Drug-Free Tennessee marks International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking with drug prevention.
Press Release –
Jul 1, 2016
Nashville, Tennessee, July 1, 2016 (Newswire.com)
– Ranked number 4 this year in Forbes’ list of best American cities for jobs, Nashville, boasts a “high quality of life, vibrant culture and music scene and a diverse population” making it “a desirable place to live.” However, the city has its problems too. NeighborhoodScout.com reports the city’s violent crime rate is one of the highest in the nation.
Volunteers of Drug-Free Tennesseeare addressing this problem by reaching out with the truth about drugs. And the reason is simple: the U.S. Department of Justice National Drug Intelligence Center has found that drugs area factor in 28 percent of robberies, 37 percent of burglaries and 39 percent of larcenies.
We are committed to bringing the truth about drugs to everyone. When youth know what they are really getting into, they have a chance to avoid a lot of pain and suffering. We will go to anyone, anywhere in the region to spread the Truth About Drugs message.
Rev. Brian Fesler, pastor of the Church of Scientology Nashville and coordinator of Drug-Free Tennessee
Drug-Free Tennessee is a chapter of the Foundation for a Drug-Free World. They work to reduce demand for drugs through education.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, “prevention strategies based on scientific evidence working with families, schools, and communities can ensure that children and youth, especially the most marginalized and poor, grow and stay healthy and safe into adulthood and old age. For every dollar spent on prevention, at least ten can be saved in future health, social and crime costs.”
Foundation for a Drug-Free World chapters around the world mark International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking with drug prevention activities.
Rev. Brian Fesler, pastor of the Church of Scientology Nashville and coordinator of Drug-Free Tennessee, explained why these volunteers hold drug education lectures and distribute The Truth About Drugs booklets on this day and throughout the year. “We are committed to bringing the truth about drugs to everyone,” he said. “When youth know what they are really getting into, they have a chance to avoid a lot of pain and suffering. We will go to anyone, anywhere in the region to spread the Truth About Drugs message.”
International Day Against Drug Abuse was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1987. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime is leading the global campaign to raise awareness about the major challenge that illicit drugs represent to society as a whole, and especially to the young. The goal of the campaign is to mobilize support and inspire people to act against drug use.
The Church of Scientology supports the Foundation for a Drug-Free World, which provides an educational curriculum for students designed to give all of the basic facts of how drugs affect the body and mind. To learn more, order booklets or schedule a visit to your school, group or congregation, visit drugfreetn.org.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/IXYKMSHKNFGQDPEW7NVDYOHAGQ.jpg)
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/gray/LJRAR6HWKBMZRCUODQODTEIXJA.jpg)
