While still under construction, the suicide prevention net on the Golden Gate Bridge showed significant results in 2023 and is expected to continue to reduce deaths this year, officials said.
Last year, officials recorded 14 confirmed suicides from the bridge, down from an annual average of 30. This year, the number is expected to be even lower, according to the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District.
The net is made of “marine-grade stainless steel netting installed 20 feet below the sidewalks on the bridge and extending out 20 feet over the water,” the district said in a written statement.
At a commemoration ceremony held in mid-July, local leaders spoke about the multiyear project that began in 2018 and was completed in early 2024.
The net was originally scheduled to be completed in 2021, but infighting between builders and the government caused delays and cost overruns.
“The Golden Gate Bridge is a source of immense pride to San Francisco — but for too many families in our community, the bridge has also been a place of pain,” said former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco for 37 years. “With the completion of a suicide deterrent system for the Golden Gate Bridge, we are providing a critical second chance for troubled individuals.”
Ultimately, the project cost about $224 million, the transportation district said — well over the 2014 estimate of $76 million when it was approved but also much less than the $398 million figure cited in a 2022 lawsuit between contractors and the district.
Suicide prevention and crisis counseling resources
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, seek help from a professional and call 9-8-8. The United States’ first nationwide three-digit mental health crisis hotline 988 will connect callers with trained mental health counselors. Text “HOME” to 741741 in the U.S. and Canada to reach the Crisis Text Line.
The net’s purpose is to deter would-be jumpers and save those who do jump from death. Still, being caught by the net “is designed to be painful and may result in significant injury,” the transportation district said.
A 2017 study in Switzerland found that barriers and nets on bridges reduce suicides by up to 77%. In Pasadena, the City Council is considering suicide prevention barriers on the Colorado Street Bridge, according to Pasadena Now.
At the Golden Gate Bridge ceremony, Kymberlyrenee Gamboa spoke about the loss of her 18-year-old son, who jumped from the bridge in 2013.
The project’s completion “brings a profound sense of hope and healing in knowing that future families may be spared from enduring such a devastating loss,” she said.
Truist Financial Corp boosted its position in Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE:NET – Free Report) by 1.2% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The fund owned 28,388 shares of the company’s stock after acquiring an additional 331 shares during the quarter. Truist Financial Corp’s holdings in Cloudflare were worth $2,364,000 as of its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently added to or reduced their stakes in the company. Yousif Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in Cloudflare by 4.0% in the fourth quarter. Yousif Capital Management LLC now owns 3,399 shares of the company’s stock valued at $283,000 after acquiring an additional 130 shares during the last quarter. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Cloudflare by 0.5% in the fourth quarter. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 27,358 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,278,000 after acquiring an additional 132 shares during the last quarter. Quent Capital LLC boosted its holdings in Cloudflare by 8.1% in the fourth quarter. Quent Capital LLC now owns 1,877 shares of the company’s stock valued at $156,000 after acquiring an additional 140 shares during the last quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC raised its position in Cloudflare by 1.2% in the third quarter. Vanguard Personalized Indexing Management LLC now owns 19,736 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,244,000 after purchasing an additional 239 shares during the period. Finally, Profund Advisors LLC raised its position in Cloudflare by 1.2% in the third quarter. Profund Advisors LLC now owns 21,982 shares of the company’s stock valued at $1,386,000 after purchasing an additional 251 shares during the period. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 82.68% of the company’s stock.
Wall Street Analyst Weigh In
Several research firms have commented on NET. DZ Bank raised Cloudflare from a “hold” rating to a “buy” rating and set a $95.00 price objective on the stock in a research report on Tuesday. Susquehanna cut their price objective on Cloudflare from $115.00 to $80.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Monday. Bank of America raised their price objective on Cloudflare from $52.00 to $60.00 and gave the company an “underperform” rating in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Oppenheimer cut their price objective on Cloudflare from $122.00 to $110.00 and set an “outperform” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, May 3rd. Finally, Truist Financial raised their price objective on Cloudflare from $90.00 to $120.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research report on Friday, February 9th. Four research analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and ten have issued a buy rating to the company’s stock. According to MarketBeat.com, Cloudflare currently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus target price of $89.48.
In other Cloudflare news, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $94.59, for a total value of $4,955,002.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now directly owns 12,183 shares in the company, valued at $1,152,389.97. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. In other Cloudflare news, Director Carl Ledbetter sold 44,220 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 14th. The stock was sold at an average price of $100.16, for a total value of $4,429,075.20. Following the completion of the sale, the director now directly owns 1,363,066 shares in the company, valued at $136,524,690.56. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is accessible through the SEC website. Also, CEO Matthew Prince sold 52,384 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Wednesday, February 21st. The stock was sold at an average price of $94.59, for a total value of $4,955,002.56. Following the completion of the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 12,183 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $1,152,389.97. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Over the last three months, insiders sold 1,141,153 shares of company stock worth $108,765,387. Company insiders own 12.83% of the company’s stock.
Cloudflare Stock Performance
Shares of NYSE NET opened at $72.45 on Thursday. The company has a current ratio of 3.51, a quick ratio of 3.51 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.61. The stock has a 50 day simple moving average of $92.19 and a 200-day simple moving average of $83.85. The company has a market cap of $24.46 billion, a PE ratio of -136.70 and a beta of 1.15. Cloudflare, Inc. has a 12-month low of $45.47 and a 12-month high of $116.00.
Cloudflare (NYSE:NET – Get Free Report) last issued its quarterly earnings data on Thursday, February 8th. The company reported ($0.06) earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of ($0.07) by $0.01. The business had revenue of $362.47 million during the quarter, compared to the consensus estimate of $352.70 million. Cloudflare had a negative return on equity of 12.78% and a negative net margin of 13.10%. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Cloudflare, Inc. will post -0.2 EPS for the current year.
Cloudflare, Inc operates as a cloud services provider that delivers a range of services to businesses worldwide. The company provides an integrated cloud-based security solution to secure a range of combination of platforms, including public cloud, private cloud, on-premise, software-as-a-service applications, and IoT devices; and website and application security products comprising web application firewall, bot management, distributed denial of service, API gateways, SSL/TLS encryption, script management, security center, and rate limiting products.
Further Reading
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A tech employee’s recording of the meeting firing her from a sales role at Cloudflare NET, -1.79%
has spurred criticism of the company — and a broader conversation about the right way to let employees go.
Viewers have called the roughly 10-minute TikTok video, which went viral this week, “sad” and a “disaster.” Even Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince responded on X (formerly Twitter) that it was “painful for me to watch.”
In the video captioned, “POV: You’re about to get laid off,” former Cloudflare account executive Brittany Pietsch logs into a virtual meeting with an HR representative and a director at the company, both of whom she says she’s never met before. In a caption, Pietsch writes that she assumed they were meeting to let her go, because she had heard from coworkers who had been axed already.
In the video, the company reps say that Pietsch hadn’t met performance expectations, and that Cloudflare had decided to “part ways” with her. Pietsch’s response is what has pushed this clip to be shared all over social-media newsfeeds: She asks for an explanation for why she, specifically, is being let go by the company, particularly because she’s a new employee who hasn’t heard any negative feedback. She also asks why her manager isn’t a part of this termination meeting.
“Every single one-on-one [meeting] I’ve had with my manager, every conversation I’ve had with him — he’s been giving me nothing but ‘I am doing a great job,’” she says during the meeting. “I’m just definitely very confused and would love an explanation that makes sense.”
The director, who can’t be seen in the video, says he “won’t be able to go into specifics” on Pietsch’s performance.
In a statement to MarketWatch, a Cloudflare spokesperson clarified that the company did not conduct layoffs, and is not engaged in a reduction of force. “When we do make the decision to part ways with an employee, we base the decision on a review of an employee’s ability to meet measurable performance targets,” the Cloudflare statement said. “We regularly review team members’ performance and let go of those who aren’t right for our team. There is nothing unique about that review process or the number of people we let go after performance review this quarter.”
Pietsch did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Company CEO Prince added on X, formerly known as Twitter, that the company fired 40 salespeople out of 1,500 in its go-to-market division. “That’s a normal quarter,” he wrote in his post. “When we’re doing performance management right, we can often tell within 3 months or less of a sales hire, even during the holidays, whether they’re going to be successful or not.”
But he also added: “We try to fire perfectly. In this case, clearly we were far from perfect. The video is painful for me to watch. Managers should always be involved. HR should be involved, but it shouldn’t be outsourced to them … We don’t always get it right.”
Many viewers seem to agree, as the video has drawn close to 200,000 views on TikTok and millions of views on X, along with going viral on Reddit.
“Total disaster on both sides,” lawyer Eric Pacifici said.
“Totally unfair to her,” wrote Austen Allred, CEO of the online-coding bootcamp Bloom Institute of Technology. “Pretty sad across the board.”
On LinkedIn, Pietsch gave her own response to the social-media uproar. She said that her manager was unaware that she was being let go, and that she asked questions during the meeting not to try and save her job, but rather to get greater clarity on why she had been singled out for termination.
“I’ll never be able to wrap my mind around it,” she wrote in the post. “We as employees are expected to give 2 weeks notice and yet we don’t deserve even a sliver of respect when the roles are reversed?”
What’s the right way to fire an employee?
It’s never easy to part ways with an employee, according to Molly, a human-resources consultant who runs the TikTok account HR Molly, which has 80,000 followers. She asked only to be identified by her first name for privacy reasons.
But that being said, it’s very important to treat affected employees with respect. That can include sharing as much information as possible about why the decision is being made.
“I tell people that even if you catch someone stealing, even that termination meeting should have a level of decency,” she said. “It seems like there’s a significant consensus that the meeting [in the viral video] lacked some dignity.”
It’s also important to understand these kinds of conversations will be difficult for an employee no matter what, Molly added.
“We know this impacts people and we know this is emotional and that it’s harmful. How can we do it in a way that creates the least amount of additional harm?” she said, noting that she picked up the concept from fellow TikTok creator and diversity consultant Ciarra Jones. “Companies need to prioritize the well-being of the employee that’s impacted.”
As for recording your layoff or firing meeting — that can be risky, Molly said, and downright illegal in states that require you to receive consent before doing so.
But companies and HR professionals would be wise to remind themselves that, in this day and age, it can happen, she said. And if a camera or tape recorder would change the way you handle an interaction, it’s a good sign to reevaluate.
According to its company website, Cloudflare has dozens of job postings for open positions across the company, including sales roles.
In her LinkedIn post, Pietsch said that she’s not very concerned about any backlash over the video that might impede her chances of getting another job.
“Any company that wouldn’t want to hire me because I shared a video of how a company fired me or because I asked questions as to why I was being let go is not a company I would ever want to work for anyway,” she wrote.
The throaty squeaks of terror could easily be heard from 20 feet away. A pair of green parrots — likely red-crowned amazons native to northeast Mexico — screeched while hanging upside down inside a clear plastic net.
They flapped around, the catches of the day, trapped by an unknown fisher of birds who authorities believe has been illegally rounding up parrots throughout Temple City and perhaps the greater San Gabriel Valley for about a week.
A video captured on Oct. 26 shows a single man pulling down a net nestled amid the city’s leafy London planetrees along Rosemead Boulevard between East Las Tunas Drive and East Broadway. The unidentified man slams the birds against a short concrete wall that he hops over before jumping into his Ford Fusion and driving away.
The video, the nets in the trees and corpses of dead parrots on the ground make it unclear if the man shown in the video is killing all the birds he traps or is taking some of them with him.
It is a mystery that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department acknowledged Friday afternoon it is not close to solving.
“We have an active investigation and have contacted a few people, but we have no person of interest,” said sheriff’s spokesperson Sgt. Erin Liu, who is based out of the Temple City sheriff’s station. “We are still looking.”
Liu said the department was “surprised by the emotion” that has fueled calls and letters to the sheriff’s station, City Hall and other governmental agencies.
A red-crowned amazon is found smashed in Temple City. A man was filmed illegally trapping parrots in a mini mall on Rosemead Boulevard between East Las Tunas Drive and East Broadway Avenue. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is investigating the incident.
Her husband, Justin Baker, shot the footage as he stopped for coffee around 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 26 while en route to work. Cordova posted the 23-second clip on TikTok, which launched a wave of outrage.
“In the days leading up to that video, we saw the bodies of dead parrots on our walk near where the guy was setting up nets and it was sick,” Cordova said. “Some of them had little ropes around their necks, and we just had to stop this guy.”
Cordova said she reached out to Temple City administrators, the Sheriff’s Department, the San Gabriel Valley Humane Society and California’s Fish and Wildlife Department looking for help.
She hasn’t been able to get any clarity as to who — if anyone — is leading the investigation.
Temple City Mayor William Man did not respond to a call or email seeking comment. Neither did City Council members.
In a statement issued by the city, spokesperson Iliana Flores confirmed that residents alerted city personnel about trapped parrots.
“The City of Temple City is working with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department to investigate this matter,” the statement read. “City staff surveyed Las Tunas Drive, Rosemead Boulevard and other streets and took down all the nets.”
A spokesperson for the San Gabriel Valley Humane Society also acknowledged that they had received complaints from the public and forwarded all information to the Sheriff’s Department.
Liu said one issue that vexed the department during its investigation was whether trapping the parrots violates any law.
“To be honest, we are learning about the whole situation,” Liu said. “We just can’t arrest somebody without there being a charge.”
A net that could be used to trap birds hangs between leafy London planetrees along Rosemead Boulevard between East Las Tunas Drive and East Broadway in Temple City.
(Courtesy of Ceidy Baker Cordova)
After days of back-and-forth consultation with legal experts from California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, they found a solution: Code 3005.
The misdemeanor prohibits the unlawful taking of “birds or mammals with any net, pound, cage, trap, set line or wire, or poisonous substance, or to possess birds or mammals.”
The birds’ non-native status makes them more difficult to protect, according to retired ornithologist Kimball Garrett, a former collections manager at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
“Non-native birds are not listed for federal or state protection and so the question comes up of how do conservation agencies protect them,” Garrett said.
Garrett believed the Southern California population was larger than in the bird’s natural habitat of the northern Mexican states of Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosi and Veracruz.
He estimated there were only a few thousand in Mexico along with some red-crowns that live in Texas.
“They’ve been under attack as their habitats have been torn up for agriculture in most cases and also urban development in others,” he said. “Of course, the illegal pet trade has also been fueling their demise too.”
Garrett said the red-crowned amazon is one of several exotic birds that have found a home in Southern California, along with the lilac-crowned parrots of western Mexico and the mitred parakeets of South America. “In some ways, it can be argued that protecting the red-crown amazons here might be their last best hope,” he said.
While there are popular origin myths surrounding the birds’ arrival in Southern California — pet shop fire escapees and abandoned birds from the old Busch Gardens in Van Nuys — Garrett said no single explanation tells the real story.
“It’s a little bit of all of the above with the exception of Busch Gardens, which is not true,” he said. “But it’s possible that the birds you see today are the descendants of escaped pets decades earlier.”
Seasonal parrots gather in a roost in Temple City this past January. Their loudness can be overwhelming.
(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)
When David Romero moved to East San Gabriel in 1988, one of the first visitors to his home was a red-crowned parrot.
“They’re as much a part of the neighborhood as anyone else,” said Romero, 66. “We’re all parrot fans and we want to see them protected.”
David Nelson, Romero’s partner, said the couple’s Texas umbrella and persimmon trees have attracted a variety of visitors, including yellow-crowned amazons, yellow-chevroned parakeets and other parrots.
“If I can make a prediction, I think the guy is selling them at swap meets,” said Nelson, 76. “They’re worth money.”
The news of the bird abductions hit L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, a parrot owner, particularly hard.
Barger said she wakes up to see several birds, including red-crowned amazons, “feasting on the red berries” of a hedge inside her yard.
She called amazons and parrots “noble” and said she vowed to check in on the investigation.
“I couldn’t watch the video because it’s just cruelty,” said Barger, whose district includes unincorporated Temple City. “I don’t know what he’s doing with those birds or why he would trap them, but I know we have to stop this.”
The numbers: Total U.S. household net worth rose $5.5 trillion to a record $154.28 trillion in the second quarter, the Federal Reserve said Friday. This is the third straight quarterly increase.
Key details: The gain was boosted by a $2.6 trillion gain in stocks. The value of real estate holdings rose $2.5 trillion in the three months.
Household debt rose at a 2.7% annual rate in the second quarter. Mortgage debt grew at a 2.8% annual rate.
Big picture: The health of the consumer has been a big factor in the surprising strength of the U.S. economy this year. Talk of a recession has vanished and the economy seems to be strengthening as the year progresses.
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Cloudflare, Inc. engages in the provision of cloud-based services to secure websites. It offers various products for performance and reliability, video streaming and delivery, advanced security, insights, Cloudflare for developers, domain registration and Cloudflare marketplace. It operates through United States and Rest of the World geographical segments. The company was founded by Matthew Prince, Michelle Zatlyn and Lee Holloway in July 2009 and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
One cruel truth the stock market confirmed this past week is that trying to pick the bottom for technology stocks is a fool’s errand. The Nasdaq Composite’s terrible September—it was down 10.5% on the month—has made the bottom-fishing that took place over the summer look ill-advised. As I’ve noted before, the first downturn in tech earlier this year was all about valuations. This new phase of the decline is all about softening earnings. When it comes to price-to-earnings ratios, the market is running into a denominator problem.
The market downturn, the weaker economy, and the reversal of some pandemic-era trends have exposed weaknesses in the business models of companies such as
Peloton Interactive
(SNAP), and investors have adjusted valuations accordingly. But there are still some powerful underlying secular trends that should eventually drive tech stocks higher. Investors with long time horizons and strong stomachs might consider inching into the market. I have a few ideas on where to look.
