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Tech Moves: Leafly hires general counsel; Skilljar and LevelTen add execs; and more

— Seattle cannabis marketplace Leafly announced New York-based lawyer Kimberly Boler as its new general counsel. She joins the 11-year company just ahead of its deal to go public through a merger with New York-based Merida Merger Corp, a special purpose..

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From top left, clockwise: Kimberly Boler, Laura Wiler, Niran Kundapur, Dino Rech, Marty Blue, and Maria Gilfoyle.

— Seattle cannabis marketplace Leafly announced New York-based lawyer Kimberly Boler as its new general counsel. She joins the 11-year company just ahead of its deal to go public through a merger with New York-based Merida Merger Corp, a special purpose acquisition company.

Kimberly Boler. (Leafly Photo)

Boler was most recently vice president of corporate law at Patriarch Partners. She was previously assistant general counsel at global insurance company AIG and general counsel Aria Energy.

“I am thrilled to bring my experience to the table as General Counsel so that we can navigate a challenging regulatory environment,” said Boler in a statement.

The cannabis regulatory environment is certainly evolving, including recent Apple App Store changes that allowed Leafly to accept marijuana orders on its iOS app.

Leafly CEO Yoko Miyashita previously served as general counsel for the company. The longtime Getty Images veteran was promoted to the CEO role last year.

Marty Blue. (Recurrent Photo)

— Former CarGurus executive Martha Blue joined the board of directors of Seattle startup Recurrent, which provides independent reports on the condition of used electric car batteries. 

Blue is currently a senior advisor on electric vehicle strategy at Boston Consulting Group and an entrepreneur-in-residence at Harvard Business School. She spent more than eight years at CarGurus, an online automotive marketplace, as SVP of business development.

Recurrent, a Pioneer Square Labs spinout, launched last year and has raised $3.75 million in grants and seed funding to date.

— Bank of America Seattle Market President Kerri Schroeder is the new board chair of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce. She has served on the Seattle Chamber’s board since 2018 and will be chair for 2021-2022.

From left: Laura Wiler and Niran Kundapur. (Skilljar Photos)

— Seattle startup Skilljar hired Laura Wiler as vice president of finance and operations. She spent the past seven years at Sage Intacct, a San Jose, Calif.-based financial management software company.

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Wiler recently relocated to Whidbey Island. She joins Skilljar a year after it closed a $33 million Series B round to grow its customer education software.

The company also added Niran Kundapur as VP of product earlier this year. Kundapur previously worked at talent acquisition startup Eightfold and based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Maria Gilfoyle. (Madrona Venture Group Photo)

— Madrona Venture Group will add Maria Gilfoyle to its investment team this month. With a background in fashion, Gilfoyle most recently was a venture associate at New York firm K50 Ventures. She previously co-founded and was an investor at venture community 4P Ventures.

“I am truly lucky to be joining a firm with an incredible history and future ahead,” Gilfoyle said in a post on LinkedIn.

Last year, the 25-year old Seattle venture firm raised $345 million for its eighth fund to invest in Pacific Northwest startups as well as $161 million for its second later-stage fund. Recent investments include AI platform Yoodli, social platform Game Jolt and London-based startup Troop.

— LevelTen Energy promoted Christin Camacho to vice president of marketing. Camacho joined the Seattle renewable energy marketplace in 2018 as a senior content marketing manager. She previously worked at Redfin and Edelman.

— Auterion, which makes software for drones, hired Amazon Web Services (AWS) vet Jeff Jones as chief revenue officer. He was most recently head of partner growth at AWS.

Jones previously spent more than two decades at Microsoft in sales and business development. He is based in Seattle.

Dino Rech. (Audere Photo)

— Seattle digital health nonprofit Audere announced Dino Rech as its new CEO. Founder and former CEO Philip Su will move into an advisory role.

Based in Johannesburg, South Africa, Rech was most recently a director at The Aurum Institute, which focuses on the treatment and prevention of HIV and tuberculosis. He was previously a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and led the HIV and AIDS-focused nongovernmental organization CHAPS.

Founded in 2018, Audere built software for rapid COVID-19 testing last year. Beyond the pandemic, the organization is applying mobile technology, computer vision and machine learning to global health solutions. Projects are funded by grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Justworks’ Spring Forward Fund.

The Church in the Darkness Creator Richard Rouse III joined Austin, Texas-based game studio FarBridge as studio creative director. 

The Church in the Darkness is an indie game from Seattle-based Paranoid Productions that took nearly five years to develop. In an interview with VentureBeat, Rouse said that after working as the only person full-time on an indie game, he was ready to work with a somewhat bigger team again.

— Israeli tax accounting startup Blue dot hired five former employees of Avalara, a Seattle-based tax automation company. The recent hires are:

  • Simon Geach as VP of global sales. He was most recently a senior vice president at KeyBank and previously director of national sales at Avalara.
  • Tim Teeter as VP of Business Development. A former Avalara product marketing director, Teeter was most recently at YayPay.
  • Robin Conner as VP of demand generation. Conner was a marketing director at Avalara and most recently EVP of marketing at Woodinville, Wash.-based Quantivate.
  • Scott Newell as senior sales manager. Newell held various sales roles at Avalara and was an account executive at Amazon.
  • Erich Keller as senior sales manager. Keller spent seven years in sales at Avalara and previously spent more than a decade at Technogym.

Blue dot, formerly known as VATBox, has offices in Israel, the Netherlands and a U.S. office in the Greater Boston area. The company raised $32 million earlier this year and has a partnership with SAP Concur, according to TechCrunch.

In an email to GeekWire, Conner said Blue dot plans to establish a hub in the Seattle area.

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Government

Health Officials: Man Dies From Bubonic Plague In New Mexico

Health Officials: Man Dies From Bubonic Plague In New Mexico

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Officials in…

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Health Officials: Man Dies From Bubonic Plague In New Mexico

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Officials in New Mexico confirmed that a resident died from the plague in the United States’ first fatal case in several years.

A bubonic plague smear, prepared from a lymph removed from an adenopathic lymph node, or bubo, of a plague patient, demonstrates the presence of the Yersinia pestis bacteria that causes the plague in this undated photo. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Getty Images)

The New Mexico Department of Health, in a statement, said that a man in Lincoln County “succumbed to the plague.” The man, who was not identified, was hospitalized before his death, officials said.

They further noted that it is the first human case of plague in New Mexico since 2021 and also the first death since 2020, according to the statement. No other details were provided, including how the disease spread to the man.

The agency is now doing outreach in Lincoln County, while “an environmental assessment will also be conducted in the community to look for ongoing risk,” the statement continued.

This tragic incident serves as a clear reminder of the threat posed by this ancient disease and emphasizes the need for heightened community awareness and proactive measures to prevent its spread,” the agency said.

A bacterial disease that spreads via rodents, it is generally spread to people through the bites of infected fleas. The plague, known as the black death or the bubonic plague, can spread by contact with infected animals such as rodents, pets, or wildlife.

The New Mexico Health Department statement said that pets such as dogs and cats that roam and hunt can bring infected fleas back into homes and put residents at risk.

Officials warned people in the area to “avoid sick or dead rodents and rabbits, and their nests and burrows” and to “prevent pets from roaming and hunting.”

“Talk to your veterinarian about using an appropriate flea control product on your pets as not all products are safe for cats, dogs or your children” and “have sick pets examined promptly by a veterinarian,” it added.

“See your doctor about any unexplained illness involving a sudden and severe fever, the statement continued, adding that locals should clean areas around their home that could house rodents like wood piles, junk piles, old vehicles, and brush piles.

The plague, which is spread by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, famously caused the deaths of an estimated hundreds of millions of Europeans in the 14th and 15th centuries following the Mongol invasions. In that pandemic, the bacteria spread via fleas on black rats, which historians say was not known by the people at the time.

Other outbreaks of the plague, such as the Plague of Justinian in the 6th century, are also believed to have killed about one-fifth of the population of the Byzantine Empire, according to historical records and accounts. In 2013, researchers said the Justinian plague was also caused by the Yersinia pestis bacteria.

But in the United States, it is considered a rare disease and usually occurs only in several countries worldwide. Generally, according to the Mayo Clinic, the bacteria affects only a few people in U.S. rural areas in Western states.

Recent cases have occurred mainly in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Countries with frequent plague cases include Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Peru, the clinic says. There were multiple cases of plague reported in Inner Mongolia, China, in recent years, too.

Symptoms

Symptoms of a bubonic plague infection include headache, chills, fever, and weakness. Health officials say it can usually cause a painful swelling of lymph nodes in the groin, armpit, or neck areas. The swelling usually occurs within about two to eight days.

The disease can generally be treated with antibiotics, but it is usually deadly when not treated, the Mayo Clinic website says.

“Plague is considered a potential bioweapon. The U.S. government has plans and treatments in place if the disease is used as a weapon,” the website also says.

According to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the last time that plague deaths were reported in the United States was in 2020 when two people died.

Tyler Durden Wed, 03/13/2024 - 21:40

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International

Riley Gaines Explains How Women’s Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Riley Gaines Explains How Women’s Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Is there a light forming when it comes to the long, dark and…

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Riley Gaines Explains How Women's Sports Are Rigged To Promote The Trans Agenda

Is there a light forming when it comes to the long, dark and bewildering tunnel of social justice cultism?  Global events have been so frenetic that many people might not remember, but only a couple years ago Big Tech companies and numerous governments were openly aligned in favor of mass censorship.  Not just to prevent the public from investigating the facts surrounding the pandemic farce, but to silence anyone questioning the validity of woke concepts like trans ideology. 

From 2020-2022 was the closest the west has come in a long time to a complete erasure of freedom of speech.  Even today there are still countries and Europe and places like Canada or Australia that are charging forward with draconian speech laws.  The phrase "radical speech" is starting to circulate within pro-censorship circles in reference to any platform where people are allowed to talk critically.  What is radical speech?  Basically, it's any discussion that runs contrary to the beliefs of the political left.

Open hatred of moderate or conservative ideals is perfectly acceptable, but don't ever shine a negative light on woke activism, or you might be a terrorist.

Riley Gaines has experienced this double standard first hand.  She was even assaulted and taken hostage at an event in 2023 at San Francisco State University when leftists protester tried to trap her in a room and demanded she "pay them to let her go."  Campus police allegedly witnessed the incident but charges were never filed and surveillance footage from the college was never released.  

It's probably the last thing a champion female swimmer ever expects, but her head-on collision with the trans movement and the institutional conspiracy to push it on the public forced her to become a counter-culture voice of reason rather than just an athlete.

For years the independent media argued that no matter how much we expose the insanity of men posing as women to compete and dominate women's sports, nothing will really change until the real female athletes speak up and fight back.  Riley Gaines and those like her represent that necessary rebellion and a desperately needed return to common sense and reason.

In a recent interview on the Joe Rogan Podcast, Gaines related some interesting information on the inner workings of the NCAA and the subversive schemes surrounding trans athletes.  Not only were women participants essentially strong-armed by colleges and officials into quietly going along with the program, there was also a concerted propaganda effort.  Competition ceremonies were rigged as vehicles for promoting trans athletes over everyone else. 

The bottom line?  The competitions didn't matter.  The real women and their achievements didn't matter.  The only thing that mattered to officials were the photo ops; dudes pretending to be chicks posing with awards for the gushing corporate media.  The agenda took precedence.

Lia Thomas, formerly known as William Thomas, was more than an activist invading female sports, he was also apparently a science project fostered and protected by the athletic establishment.  It's important to understand that the political left does not care about female athletes.  They do not care about women's sports.  They don't care about the integrity of the environments they co-opt.  Their only goal is to identify viable platforms with social impact and take control of them.  Women's sports are seen as a vehicle for public indoctrination, nothing more.

The reasons why they covet women's sports are varied, but a primary motive is the desire to assert the fallacy that men and women are "the same" psychologically as well as physically.  They want the deconstruction of biological sex and identity as nothing more than "social constructs" subject to personal preference.  If they can destroy what it means to be a man or a woman, they can destroy the very foundations of relationships, families and even procreation.  

For now it seems as though the trans agenda is hitting a wall with much of the public aware of it and less afraid to criticize it.  Social media companies might be able to silence some people, but they can't silence everyone.  However, there is still a significant threat as the movement continues to target children through the public education system and women's sports are not out of the woods yet.   

The ultimate solution is for women athletes around the world to organize and widely refuse to participate in any competitions in which biological men are allowed.  The only way to save women's sports is for women to be willing to end them, at least until institutions that put doctrine ahead of logic are made irrelevant.          

Tyler Durden Wed, 03/13/2024 - 17:20

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Government

Congress’ failure so far to deliver on promise of tens of billions in new research spending threatens America’s long-term economic competitiveness

A deal that avoided a shutdown also slashed spending for the National Science Foundation, putting it billions below a congressional target intended to…

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Science is again on the chopping block on Capitol Hill. AP Photo/Sait Serkan Gurbuz

Federal spending on fundamental scientific research is pivotal to America’s long-term economic competitiveness and growth. But less than two years after agreeing the U.S. needed to invest tens of billions of dollars more in basic research than it had been, Congress is already seriously scaling back its plans.

A package of funding bills recently passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden on March 9, 2024, cuts the current fiscal year budget for the National Science Foundation, America’s premier basic science research agency, by over 8% relative to last year. That puts the NSF’s current allocation US$6.6 billion below targets Congress set in 2022.

And the president’s budget blueprint for the next fiscal year, released on March 11, doesn’t look much better. Even assuming his request for the NSF is fully funded, it would still, based on my calculations, leave the agency a total of $15 billion behind the plan Congress laid out to help the U.S. keep up with countries such as China that are rapidly increasing their science budgets.

I am a sociologist who studies how research universities contribute to the public good. I’m also the executive director of the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science, a national university consortium whose members share data that helps us understand, explain and work to amplify those benefits.

Our data shows how underfunding basic research, especially in high-priority areas, poses a real threat to the United States’ role as a leader in critical technology areas, forestalls innovation and makes it harder to recruit the skilled workers that high-tech companies need to succeed.

A promised investment

Less than two years ago, in August 2022, university researchers like me had reason to celebrate.

Congress had just passed the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act. The science part of the law promised one of the biggest federal investments in the National Science Foundation in its 74-year history.

The CHIPS act authorized US$81 billion for the agency, promised to double its budget by 2027 and directed it to “address societal, national, and geostrategic challenges for the benefit of all Americans” by investing in research.

But there was one very big snag. The money still has to be appropriated by Congress every year. Lawmakers haven’t been good at doing that recently. As lawmakers struggle to keep the lights on, fundamental research is quickly becoming a casualty of political dysfunction.

Research’s critical impact

That’s bad because fundamental research matters in more ways than you might expect.

For instance, the basic discoveries that made the COVID-19 vaccine possible stretch back to the early 1960s. Such research investments contribute to the health, wealth and well-being of society, support jobs and regional economies and are vital to the U.S. economy and national security.

Lagging research investment will hurt U.S. leadership in critical technologies such as artificial intelligence, advanced communications, clean energy and biotechnology. Less support means less new research work gets done, fewer new researchers are trained and important new discoveries are made elsewhere.

But disrupting federal research funding also directly affects people’s jobs, lives and the economy.

Businesses nationwide thrive by selling the goods and services – everything from pipettes and biological specimens to notebooks and plane tickets – that are necessary for research. Those vendors include high-tech startups, manufacturers, contractors and even Main Street businesses like your local hardware store. They employ your neighbors and friends and contribute to the economic health of your hometown and the nation.

Nearly a third of the $10 billion in federal research funds that 26 of the universities in our consortium used in 2022 directly supported U.S. employers, including:

  • A Detroit welding shop that sells gases many labs use in experiments funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Defense and Department of Energy.

  • A Dallas-based construction company that is building an advanced vaccine and drug development facility paid for by the Department of Health and Human Services.

  • More than a dozen Utah businesses, including surveyors, engineers and construction and trucking companies, working on a Department of Energy project to develop breakthroughs in geothermal energy.

When Congress shortchanges basic research, it also damages businesses like these and people you might not usually associate with academic science and engineering. Construction and manufacturing companies earn more than $2 billion each year from federally funded research done by our consortium’s members.

A lag or cut in federal research funding would harm U.S. competitiveness in critical advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics. Hispanolistic/E+ via Getty Images

Jobs and innovation

Disrupting or decreasing research funding also slows the flow of STEM – science, technology, engineering and math – talent from universities to American businesses. Highly trained people are essential to corporate innovation and to U.S. leadership in key fields, such as AI, where companies depend on hiring to secure research expertise.

In 2022, federal research grants paid wages for about 122,500 people at universities that shared data with my institute. More than half of them were students or trainees. Our data shows that they go on to many types of jobs but are particularly important for leading tech companies such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Intel.

That same data lets me estimate that over 300,000 people who worked at U.S. universities in 2022 were paid by federal research funds. Threats to federal research investments put academic jobs at risk. They also hurt private sector innovation because even the most successful companies need to hire people with expert research skills. Most people learn those skills by working on university research projects, and most of those projects are federally funded.

High stakes

If Congress doesn’t move to fund fundamental science research to meet CHIPS and Science Act targets – and make up for the $11.6 billion it’s already behind schedule – the long-term consequences for American competitiveness could be serious.

Over time, companies would see fewer skilled job candidates, and academic and corporate researchers would produce fewer discoveries. Fewer high-tech startups would mean slower economic growth. America would become less competitive in the age of AI. This would turn one of the fears that led lawmakers to pass the CHIPS and Science Act into a reality.

Ultimately, it’s up to lawmakers to decide whether to fulfill their promise to invest more in the research that supports jobs across the economy and in American innovation, competitiveness and economic growth. So far, that promise is looking pretty fragile.

This is an updated version of an article originally published on Jan. 16, 2024.

Jason Owen-Smith receives research support from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Wellcome Leap.

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