Episode Transcript
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The opinions and information expressed and discussedon The Doctor Doug Ramsey Show or for
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at home, and in live.It's the Doctor Doug Ramsey Show, and
now here's your host, Doctor DougRamsey. Welcome to the Doctor Doug Ramsey
Show and your host, Doctor DougRamsey, broadcasting on the Mojo five Rail
network. I can't say it's liveanymore because you can pull it up anytime
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you want, and he gets postedup as soon as I get done recording
the shows, so the format changesa little bit. But I'll be putting
up one show a week, isis my what kind of per usual unless
there's a scheduling snaff foo. Butjust check the list. It's got everything
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loaded by date, so you cansee if there's a new one that's been
uploaded or not. All right.New York Times, July ninth, This
is the new sport. He's probablyseen it on TV. It looks like
it hurts, and this is outof Las Vegas. They said that when
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the meat palm of Vasil Kamatski,three hundred and sixty pound thirty four year
old pig farmer from Siberia, knownas Dumpling, there's a great nickname,
struck the tender cheek of the manwho faced him, it sounded like a
thunderclap. Dumpling didn't appear to expendmuch effort. He swung lazily, the
way you might bat a fly,but it was enough to send his opponent,
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Camille mar Roussars, six year oldfrom Orland Park, Illinois, toppling
to the ground. He got wrecked. Referees in the medical staff on stage
at the Cobalt Ballroom at the FountainBlue Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas late
last month rust rushed to check onmaruss Ars. Any hesitation in the cheering
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and applause from the thirty five hundredperson crowd was alleviated when someone with a
clear view of the ring yelled outthat Maroussaurus was still breathing. Thank goodness,
that's that's a good sign. Guy. Gets whacked in the face and
he's still breathing, so hopefully that'sthe case. The atmosphere had the boozy
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jocularity of a bachelor party. Dumplingraised a fist, grinning and triumph is
the announcer to cleared to him.The victor maruss Urs remained to unmoving on
the floor. The whole fight,if you can call it as much,
lasted about thirty seconds. Most fansagreed that it was the highlight of the
evening's eight bouts event, in whichone pair of competitors after another stood their
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ground and exchanged ear splitting slaps.Dumpling has been slap fighting in his native
Russia for many years. In fact, he is considered one of the forefathers
of this unlikely pastime, helping topopularize it with viral highlight videos on YouTube,
but this was his first time participatingin Power Slap, the Big Money
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slap Fighting League, created by UFCpresident Dana White. White was inspired to
found the league after happening upon Dumpling'svideos in twenty twenty one. Impressed by
the attention grabbing conceit, he wantedto see what would happen if the sport
were done the right way, whichis to say, by him, the
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answer is seven billion views in seventeenmonths. That's astounding, that's the answer,
White, who's fifty four, saidin a recent interview referring to a
statistic. He often mentions about thePower Slap League's total number of views across
multiple social media channels, including YouTube, TikTok, and snapchat. White likes
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to rattle off follower tallies and howthey compare, always favorably, to various
major league sports. Powerslap has gainedover a million and a half Instagram followers
just in twenty twenty four so far, he said, which is more than
NASCAR, Major League Soccer, theNFL, Major League Baseball, and the
NHL. Slap Fighting was once ashapeless contest of trading hard, open handed
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blows until knockout. White with isconsidered Sutereral Resources has ushered toward, if
not respectability, at least a semblanceof order, establishing a set of official
rules and putting in place protocols thatgive the enterprise the appearance of legitimate sport.
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To that end, White said theorganization had run toward regulation, actively
working with groups such as the NevadaAthletic Commission, which officially licensed the organization
to host events under its jurisdiction,to bolster the league's legitimacy and to make
sure that the sport is regulated andsafe. The UFC's long arduous road to
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legalization and legitimacy was a result ofconcentrated lobbying efforts and years long legal battles.
The organization finally secured approval for itsevents from each of the fifty states
in twenty sixteen, overcoming opposition fromthose who objected to its often extreme physical
islands, which studies have shown involvesa high risk of head injury. You
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think, but power slaps path tolegitimacy may be even steeper. Skeptics say
that regulations are basically irrelevant, thatdamage caused by slap fighting is intrinsic to
the action and can't be mitigated.This is not a sport, Okay,
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this is an event, said doctorGregory O'shannic, medical director of the Brain
Injury Association of America. A sportis a contest of athleticism or skill.
This is merely your physiological ability towishstand blunt force trauma to the head.
It's like seeing how many times,somebody can run into a brick wall.
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White pointed to the USC another brutalcombat sport, as a precedent. We
don't get enough credit for this.Never a death or serious injury in thirty
years of the UFC. He said, it's a combat sport, but we
spend the money to make sure it'sas safe as you can possibly make it.
And it's the same with Power Slab. Some studies have indicated that USC
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fighting has also potentially caused traumatic braininjuries. Yeah, I'd like to see
the studies on these guys after theyretire, you know, ten fifteen,
twenty years out. Frank Lamosella,president of Power Slab, had a more
a's a fair attitude. Look,there's two people hitting each other in the
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head, and if I was adoctor, I'd probably tell them, hey,
this is maybe not the best ideasaid, but if two people want
to do it, we provide theplatform and we spend a ton of money
making sure they're safe. Amasela,who used to be a lawyer at the
firm Paul Weiss It, became closewith White and the rest of the UFC
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team after helping to facilitate the dealthat brought the UFC, under the umbrella
of endeavor, expands upon the rigorousso called safe safety protocols. The league
is established. The competitors get MRIs, MRAs and electro cardiograms, as well
as physicals, blood exams, andeye tests. There are two referees,
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more than in any other combat sport, and multiple teams of emergency medical personnel
and ambulances on standby in case acompetitor needs to be taken to the hospital.
O'shannick is among the authors of anopen letter released by the Brain Injury
Association of America calling for power slapto be banned. The blows sustain in
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the slab fight ETEID are worse thanwhat you might experience in football or boxing,
largely because competitors are not allowed todefend themselves, meaning they are likely
to be struck on the head multipletimes in the same place over the course
of one fight. That can leadto concussions, hearing loss, seizures,
or even chronic dramatic encephalopathy. Therewill be from this. O'Shanick said there
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is no doubt there will be deaths. Dane Vernace, a slap fighter known
professionally is crazy Hawaiian, expressed initialreservations about the safety the sporting part because
the warnings he had received. Therewas a lot of people telling me about
CTE and brain damage and all thisstuff. He said, he has come
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to accept the risk. However,right now, I'm listening to my body
and I hear it very well,and I don't really believe that it will
affect me the way some people think. Oshanick said that because of the nature
of these kinds of brain injuries,sufferers of CTE do not always know they
are affected. Yeah, it cantake years before it really manifests itself.
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Critics have been alarmed by the possibilitythat these behaviors might be replicated on the
school yard by impressionable children, particularlygiven the sports and growth across social media.
O'Shanick said he worried about youngsters doingthis, but as adults go,
he seemed to work flipping. Ifyou take a libertarian perspective, you don't
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legislate it. You just let naturalselection happen. He said. Eventually all
the people engage in this are goingto die out, and you're not gonna
have to worry about that population reproduced. It sounds like the Darwinian theory going
on although it's Las Vegas events streamlive on video platform Rumble, most people
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are watching Powerslap on social media,where they have the opportunity to offer feedback
in real time. The tenor ofthe comments on power slap videos tend to
be somewhat apocalyptic. People aren't justsaying that it's stupid, but that it's
somehow emblematic of the stupidity of mankind. It's from a slap, just a
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slap, White said, laughing,reacting like you just watched somebody get hit
with a baseball bat. Mamaicella saidthe deluge of negative commentary online had actually
accelerated the growth of sport because socialmedia algorithms favorite the volume of response without
distinguishing between positive and negative replies.Whenever you leave a bad comment on a
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power slap video, that helps me, so thank you, he said.
Powerslap now lists more than eighty strikerson its website. But White, who
was caught slapping his own wife inpublic last year, said he had experienced
his kind of criticism before when hewas attempting to grow the UFC. Everyone
said that the UFC wasn't a realsport, that it was barbaric, that
it was never gonna work, Whitesaid. Since its founding in nineteen ninety
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three, and especially since White tookover the organization in two thousand and one,
the UFC has matured from niche tomainstream, with more than a billion
dollars in annual revenues and millions ofpeople tuning into its regular pay per view
broadcasts. At the end of thenight at the Cobalt Ballroom in Las Vegas,
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as a crazy Hawaiian was celebrating hisvictory in the headlining super heavyweight championship
fight. He smiled and roared,lapping up the cheers of the crowd as
he thrust his championship belt into theair, and announcer asked him if next
time he would be willing to takeon Dumpling. I want Dumpling so bad,
he yelled, giggling and rubbing hisbelly. Feed me, feed me.
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Asked to explain what he would wantthe world to know about power slap,
if he could let them know onething. A crazy Hawaiian pause for
emphasis. Like her or not,this is a sport, he said,
and whether they like it or not, we're doing it anyway, So there
you go, Kurasushi. It's kindof spreading across the country if I haven't
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been there. It's kind of afun deal. That got this whole conveyor
belt set up where they've got allthe different sushi coming around on plates,
and they have these clear dome lidson them, and you gotta do this
little kind of scissor technique with yourfingers to pop the lid up and get
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the plate out so gets your sushi. When you finish eating that piece of
sushi or two that's on that plate, you slide the plate down the little
choot and then it counts the plate, and that's how you add up your
bill at the end of the eveningand do a planate counts, and then
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if there's anything that's customized, theykeep track of that pricing because you punch
it in on them. There they'reled screen for custom orders. Or if
you want something fresh, if you'veseen something cruising around the conveyor belt three
or four times and it doesn't looklike anybody's going and everybody's breathing on it,
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you can order that same thing freshfrom the kitchen and they whip it
up and they shoot it down astraight conveyor belt right to your table and
the belt stops right when it getsto you and you take it off there.
But kurs Sushi's publicly traded, thecompany is, and they're starting to
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get hit by this inflation just likeeverybody else. So this is kind of
interesting because we get a kind ofa public view into how a particular chain's
running. It's from the Wall StreetJournal from a a day or two ago,
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so I think it was around JulyJuly thirteenth. I guess July twelfth
says surprisingly weak sales occurs Sushi USAshow that consumers are growing more wary of
high prices, especially in California,where restaurants raise prices after the fast food
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minimum wage was lifted. The financechief of the small but fast growing restaurant
chain said, Kurisushi using a fastfood restaurant, so it wasn't affected by
the California law that increased the minimumwage twenty five twenty bucks an hour,
which went into effect in April.But rising prices across the restaurant industry have
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led to a broad pullback and eatingout that Kura has felt, said chief
financial officer Jeff Huttz. Guests havehad it. They're deciding that restaurants are
very expensive as a segment, Hutssaid, we're being lumped into that.
Irvine, California based Curisoushi, knownfor serving its food on a revolving conveyor
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belt, is notable because it reportsquarterly earnings before other restaurants do because of
the time of its fiscal year.On Wednesday, the company reported that during
the quarter ended in May, samestore sales, a metric that compares year
over year sales at restaurants open atleast eighteen months, inched up zero point
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six percent, down from three percentgrowth to prior quarter and ten point three
percent a year ago. Who it'sdefinitely slowed down. Company, which warned
investors in June of its weak results, expects its same store sales to decline
during the period ending in August.Kurasushi operates sixty four restaurants nation wide,
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seventeen of which it opened in thepast year. The chains quarter started strong
in March, but sales plunged inmid April, particularly in California, which
accounts for just over half of thecompany's same store sales. According to US,
the timing coincided with California's wage longso they got over half the restaurants,
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restaurant locations just in California alone.That's you know, they got some
concentration risk, especially with state regulationsyou know that are going on, even
though this wage thing didn't impact aboutother things good and they're kind of getting
collateral damage from the cost of eatingout going up. Kris Sushi, however,
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had expected to see higher sales asa result of the wage law by
attracting fast food consumers put off byprice sikes, but that didn't end up
being the case. Instead of thefast food price sikes had a compounding effect
on inflation fatigue among California consumers,prompting many to pull back restaurants spending across
the board. According to Utts,Kris Sushi, which operates restaurants in seventeen
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states. In Washington, d C, has also observed weakening demand across They
said, Washington, d C.Is where I experienced my first Kurasushi dinner.
I was with fellow director of BreezeHolding's acquisition court, Rob Thomas,
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and he went on Yelp and foundKurasushi and we checked it out and just
had a blast. They got arobot that brings your drinks at when you
order your drinks, and it drivesright up to the table, and it's
got some crazy like karaoke toning goingand spins around and there's your drinks.
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You take them off the shelf andget your straws, and then the thing
goes driving away. It's pretty fun. Kurs Sushi increased prices by just over
three percent dur in the quarter,according to UTS, some chains required to
comply with the California Wage a LIEincrease their prices by more than double that
amount early this year. Joyce inflationrose three percent in June from a year
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earlier, extending a recent slowed anamprice increases, the Labor Department said Thursday.
Packaged food giants Pepsi Co And kanegerBrands on Thursday reported week results and
said they see consumer spending under pressure. When other restaurant chains report quarterly earnings
in the coming weeks, the focuswill be on for traffic at sales in
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California, Analysts said. Kurasushi willbe listening closely for information about what competitors
you're seeing in terms of demand sofar this summer. According to us,
we'll see over the next few weeks, he said. Kurasushi lowered its revenue
guidance for the fiscal year ending inAugust too between two and thirty five million
and two hundred and thirty seven milliondollars, down from between two hundred and
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forty three to two hundred and fortysix million dollars. Company during the quarter
reported a net loss of five hundredand fifty eight thousand bucks, compared with
a one point seven million dollar profita year earlier. Yeah, so those
cost increases are hitting the bottom line. It looks like Kursushi, which went
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public in twenty nineteen, have beenon a tear in recent years. The
company, which is controlled by itsJapanese parent company that shares the same brand,
has doubled its number of restaurants sincetwenty twenty one. It's stock on
Thursday closed at fifty five dollars andthree cents, of twelve percent from a
day earlier. Shares reached nearly onehundred and twenty bucks on March twenty seventh,
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according to fact Set. In responseto the client in sales, Kursushi
is focusing on efficiency as well ashighlighting the value that delivers the customers,
cutting new offerings such as Canadian snowCrab, which it expects to begin serving
in August. According to Uts,every gross story has some bumps in the
road, he said, and that'sthe end of the article. So cannonly
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the the quality of the sushi isn'tyour top grade, and then the portions
aren't quite as big. And that'swhy, you know, if they can
afford to price the sushi where theydo, and that's what makes it fun
for families to go in. Andyou're not gonna totally break the bank of
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going to have a sushi meal inthat environment. So they got a pretty
good business model going all right.Stub Hub, everybody's heard of stub Hub
for tickets and all. They're delayingtheir initial public offering until after Labor Day.
This is from CNBC says stub Hubis delaying a potential initial public offering
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until after Labor Day. According toa person familiar with the deal, the
online ticketing service had been eyeing thissummer IPO for evaluation of at least sixteen
and a half billion dollars. However, stagnant market conditions have led the company
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to postpone its efforts. There haven'tbeen any major consumer IPOs in recent months,
and therefore it has been difficult togauge investor appetite. The company has
been working with JP Morgan and goldbut Sacks for the past two years in
the IPO. CNBC previously reported StubHubdeclined the comment. StubHub has been a
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longtime player in the ticketing industry sinceit's launched in two thousand. It was
purchased by eBay for three hundred andten million in two thousand and seven,
but reacquired by its co founder EricBaker in twenty twenty for four billion dollars
through his new company via Go Go. Online ticketing rivals seak Geek has also
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been evaluating a potential IPO this year, according to media reports. In early
June, Bloomberger reported City Bank andWells Fargo join Morgan Stanley on the company's
plan listing. The news outlet reportedseat Geek was seeking evaluation above one point
three five billion dollars. If stubhub does enter the public market, it
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will trade alongside competitors vivid Seats andlive Nation. Vivid Seats is a market
cap at one and a half billiondollars, in Live Nation is valued just
under twenty three billion dollars. TheLive Events marketplace is bloomed in the wake
of the COVID nineteen pandemic as peoplehave gravitated towards out of home entertainment and
experiences. Record breaking concert ticket salessuch as those seen for Taylor Swifts,
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The Area's Tour, and Beyonce's RenaissanceTour. It fueled the revenues for ticketing
companies across the board. If youhaven't seen the headline, you're going to
and this is just massive about ATand T in their breach. This is
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from Friday from July twelfth, saysthat the sell and text message records from
mid to late twenty twenty two oftens of millions of AT and T cell
phone customers and many non AT andT customers were exposed to a massive data
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breach, the telecom company revealed Friday. AT and T said the compromised data
includes the telephone numbers and nearly allthat's in quotes of its cellular customers and
the customers of wireless providers that useits network between that used its network between
May first to twenty twenty two andOctober thirty first to twenty twenty two.
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The stolen logs also contain a recordof every number AT and T customers call
their texts, including customers of otherwireless networks, the number of times they
interacted, and the call duration.Importantly, AT and T said the stolen
data did not include the content tocalls and text messages, nor the time
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of those communications. The records ofa very small number of customers from January
two, twenty twenty three, werealso implicated. AT and T said,
we have an ongoing investigation into theAT and T breach, and we're coordinating
with our law enforcement partners, theFCC said. On social media platform x
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the company blamed an illegal download ona third party cloud platform that it learned
about in April, just as thecompany was grappling with an unrelated major data
leak. AT and T says thatthe exposed data is not believed to be
publicly available. Whoever, CNN wasunable to independently verify that assertion. AT
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and T Spokespersonnalities Buyers told CNN thatthis was an entirely new incident that had
no connection in any way to anotherincident discloaded in March. At that time,
AT and T said personal information suchas social security numbers on seventy three
million current and former customers was releasedonto the dark web. That is terrible.
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We sincerely regret this incident occurred andremained committed to protecting the information in
our care, the company said.In a statement about the latest breach.
At and T listed to prospy onehundred and ten million wireless subscribers as of
the end of twenty twenty two.At and T said international calls were non
included in the stolen data, withthe exceptional calls to Canada. The breach
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also included AT and T landline customerswho interacted with those cell numbers. At
and T said that contents of thecalls or texts personal information such as security
social security numbers, dates of birth, or customer names were not exposed in
this incident. However, the companycan acknowledge that publicly available tools can often
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link names with specific phone numbers.Additionally, AT and T said that for
an undisclosed subset of its records,one or more cell site identification numbers linked
to the calls and texts were alsoexposed. Such data could reveal the broad
geographic location of one or more ofthe parties. AT and T believes that
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at least one person involved in thecyber criminal incident is in custody, the
company said in a filing with theSecurities and Exchange Commission. The FBI declined
of comment when asked about that statement. AT and T promised to notify current
informer customers whose information was involved andprovide them resources to protect their information.
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Usage dtail such as the time ofcalls and text messages were not compromised either,
but AT and T spokesperson buyers toldCNN at the number of calls and
text messages and total calliterations for specificdata months were exposed. That means the
data would not identify precisely when onephone number called another, but could reveal
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how often two parties called each otherand how long they spoke for on specific
days. AT and T said itlearned on April nineteenth that a threat actor
claimed to have unlawfully accessed and copiedAGENTT call logs company sent it immediately hired
experts. In a subsequent investigation determinedhackers had exfiltrated files between April fourteenth and
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April twenty fifth. What a disaster, all right? Mont Pizza I talked
about this last week, and theywere contemplating bankruptcy. They shifting gears here
at the last minute and they soldMod Pizza to it looks like avoid the
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bankruptcy. So this is from theLa Times and here's the latest. After
teetering on the edge of bankruptcy,fast casual restaurant chain Mod Pizza was acquired
this week by Los Angeles based EliteRestaurant Group, the company said. Prior
to the announcement of the deal,spokesperson for Mod said the pizza chain was
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actively working towards strategic alternatives that wouldavoid a Chapter eleven. Finally founded in
Seattle in two thousand and eight,Mod Pizza has more than forty locations in
California and five hundred across the country, offering fully customizable pizza pizzas. Mod
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helped popularize the trend towards allowing customersto select toppings and sauces for individual sized
pies. It's not known if themerger will result in the closure of any
restaurants. Mod is a beloved brandwith a strong following. The chain's chief
executive, Beth Scott said in astatement, We're excited to work with an
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elite restaurant group to strengthen Mod's future. Elite restaurant group has purchased other struggling
restaurant chains. Their portfolio includes Pasi'sPizza, Daphne's California Greek, and Slater's
fifty to fifty at Burger chain.I haven't heard of any of those three.
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Jim Sillaria, restaurant industry analyst thatStevens said the twenty dollars hourly minimum
wage from fast food workers that recentlywent into effecting California is likely raising salaries
across the board, not just forthe lowest paid workers. Labor costs of
restaurants could go up significantly as theminimum wage increase triggers a chain reaction,
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he said, but a dip incustomer demand to put pressure on the restaurant
industry more than other factors. Accordingto Soelera, the consumer, especially the
lower end consumer, is facing alot of headwinds and the economy said they
need to make decisions on highly allocatetheir budget and they're tightening their belts.
The Selamont Pizza comes after two popularrestaurant chains, Red Lobster and Rubio's Coastal
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Grill, filed for bankruptcy protection citingdecreased business and rising labor costs. SpaceX
had a bunch of Starling satellites andthey had a little snaffo. This is
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from ap from Friday from July twelfth, just the other day SpaceX rocket.
This is out of Kate KANNAMRAFORDA SpaceXrocket has failed for the first time in
nearly a decade, leaving the company'sInternet satellites an orbit so low that they're
doomed to fall through the atmosphere andburn up. The Falconine rocket blasted off
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from California on Thursday night carrying twentySTARLINGK satellites. Several minutes into the flight,
the upper stage engine malfunction SpaceX onFriday blamed a liquid oxygen leak.
Companies said flight controllers managed to makecontact with half of the satellites and attempted
to boost them to higher orbit usingonboard ion thrusters, but with the low
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end of their orbit only eighty fourmiles above Earth, less than half what
was intended, our maximum available thrustis unlikely to be enough to successfully raise
the satellites, the company said viaX, So they're gonna give it a
shot and try to steer each ofthose satellites up to a higher orbit,
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but that it sounds like there's notenough thrust available and too much gravitational pull
because they're just too close to theEarth where they got launched out of the
SpaceX vehicle. SpaceX said the satelliteswill re enter the atmosphere and burn up.
There was no mention of when theymight come down. More than six
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thousand orbiting starlinks currently provide Internet serviceto customers in some of the most remote
corners of the world. The FAAsaid the problem must be fixed before Falcon
rockets can fly again. It wasnot known if for how the accident might
impact SpaceX's upcoming crew flights. Abillionaire space flight is scheduled for July thirty
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one from Florida. We have plansfor the first private spacewalk, followed in
mid August by an astronaut flight tothe Internet space Station for NASA. The
tech entrepreneur who will lead to privateflight, Jeer Isaacman, said Friday that
SpaceX's Falcon nine has an incredible trackrecord and as well as an emergency escape
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system. The last launch fill failureoccurred in twenty fifteen during his space station
cargo run. Another rocket exploded.The following year during testing on the ground
SpaceX is even one must said thehigh flight rate will make it easier to
identify and correct the problem. Theydo have a good track record, that's
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from darn sure. All right,we'll come back to that story, all
right. How about this one fromthe Amazing Times from Friday, Colorado?
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Ski town can't fill a job witha one and sixty seven thousand dollars salary?
All right, So what's up withthat? That's a good paying job,
says A pandemic fueled real estate boomand mountain and resort locales is pricing
out even high income professionals and dividingcommunities over how to rane and housing costs.
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Despite offering a salary of one hundredand sixty seven thousand bucks, the
city of Steamboat Springs can't find ahead of human resources who can afford a
place to live in the remote Coloradocommunity, surrounded by ranches and famous for
training Olympic athletes at the Steamboat Hospital. Doctors willing to pay more than a
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million dollars for a home have beenrepeatedly outbid by all cash out of town
buyers and housing costs have caused somepositions to go unfilled for more than two
years. The local ski resort isbeen leasing a hotel for its employees to
live in as the homes they oncerented are increasingly turned into short term rentals
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for visitors. Houses used to befor employees and hotels for guests. Now
houses are for guests and hotels arefor employee housing, said Lauren Duke,
director of communications for the Steamboat SkiResort. We have a lot of great
staff who are early in their careersor have young families, but they just
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aren't able to put down those rootsin Steamboat. Along with other mountain towns
and destination communities across the country,a pandemic fueled real estate boom driven by
remote workers, second home buyers,and short term rental investors, has caused
home prices to nearly double. Thoseprices have shown few signs of easy de
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fight, rising interest rates, anda push for remote workers to return to
the office, leaving even higher incomeprofession even high income professionals struggling to find
housing and small rural communities across thecountry. I know that it's so hard
for folks outside of mountain or resortcommunities even wrapped their heads around, but
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housing is just so through the roofthat unless you're extremely wealthy, it's unattainable,
said Margaret Bowes, executive director ofthe Colorado Association of Ski Towns.
But addressing the problem has created apredicament of its own, dividing residents in
a battle over how to provide morehousing and who should pay for it.
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Local governments and state legislatures, includingthose in Utah and Virginia, have been
at odds over restrictions on short termrentals like airbnbs and bout initiatives to add
taxes as those rentals have had mixedresults at the polls. When it comes
to building more housing, residents havemounted opposition to some efforts over concerns about
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everything from traffic congestion to wildlife migrationpatterns. In Steamboat, the latest battle
lines have been drawn over a fivehundred and thirty four acre ranch that the
city's Housing Authority purchase with a twentyfour million dollar anonymous donation. Under the
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current proposal of the housing Authority woulduse state in federal grants and proceeds from
a recently past tax on short termrentals to build more than twenty two hundred
housing units in phases share and rentalof the properties would be restricted to residents
who mean a certain income threshold,work locally, and plan to live in
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the unit full time. Man,that is crazy. I don't use we
do too many stories coming from DaveRamsey, but I saw this headline and
it kind of attracted my attention.It's from Money Wise from Friday to like
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twelve. Dave Ramsey says very fewpeople who look like they have money actually
do. What he says is thetrue test. All right, let's hear
it from the man. All thatglitters is not goal. According to Dave
Ramsey, this is also true forpersonal finances. Very few people who look
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like they have money actually do,said the financial guru on an episode of
The Ramsey Show. The huge car, expensive car, the vastly expensive vacation
on Instagram, the vastly expensive fillin the blank are very seldom actual indicators
of wealth. To keep up appearanceshas in fact pushed many Americans in the
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debt. The rise of social mediahas created a steady stream of conspicuous consumption.
It's now easier than ever to seethe car's houses and vacations your family,
families, and friends are indulging inand that's having an impact on the
way many Americans view their own wealthand finances. A significant twenty nine percent
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of American adult survey by qual Tricksfor Intuit Credit Karma said they experience money
dysmorphia, a term financial advisors aregoing to describe a feeling of insecurity when
it comes to your financial well being. Either you're not actually fearing as poor
as you believe. This psychological disconnectbetween perception reality is wider for younger Americans,
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with sixty two percent of Gen ZAmericans surveyed by Lending Trees saying they
feel financial pressure up with someone withintheir circle, such as a family member,
friend. That survey also found thatfifty one percent respond it's admitted over
spending to impress others. Amongst thiscohort, fifty six percenter now in debt
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because of this overspending. Borrowing moneyto splurge on items only to impress others
could trigger unsustainable lifestyle inflation. Onceyou stretch your budget to buy that fancy
car, borrow money to go onvacation, you may struggle to sustain that
loan. This could be why evenhigh income Americans are now struggling to make
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ends meet. Roughly half of sixfigure earners said they were living paycheck to
paycheck according to a recent lending Clumpsurvey six figure earners. That's a one
hundred thousand and more half of themliving paycheck to paycheck right now. However,
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consumption isn't an indicator of wealth.What is. Here's how Ramsey defines
true wealth. This is Dave Ramsey, not me true wealth. According to
him, on his website, heoffers his definition of financial success. True
wealth is about three things. Makingan impact through giving, leaving a legacy,
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and having options for how you liveyour life. He's a big proponent
about giving. I'm not so soldon that one. Leaving a legacy I
like all right. Being able todonate to charity or for worthy causes is
a genuine sign that you and yourfamily have economic security and abundance. By
this measure, the US is ina pretty good spot, with regular Americans
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comprising sixty four percent of all Americancharitable donations in twenty twenty two, acording
to analysis by the United Nations.Leaving a legacy to loved ones is another
common sign that your wealth. Americansare relatively wealthy by this measure. Too.
S Sixty eight percent of gen Zand millennial Americans have already received an
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inheritance or expect to receive one inthe future. According to USA Today Blueprints,
the average size of this is inheritanceis three hundred and twenty thousand dollars.
I'm assuming that's before any state taxesget taken out, if there aren't
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any exemptions at that level. Ramsey'sfinal yardstick for true wealth is more subjective
and difficult to measure, but thefreedom to choose your lifestyle, where you
live and how you spend your timeas another signal of financial success. And
for those who've been lucky enough tofind that in their lives, they know
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to priceless. So there you go. Well, Dave Ramsey has spoken all
right, speaking of success. Ifyou haven't talked to my good friend Tony
Vaccaro, make sure you do.He can take a look at your current
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insurance program and the state planning andgive you his thoughts. He's talked to
a lot of people that have beensuccessful in their lives and have done a
lot of what Dave Ramsey said aboutleaving legacies and charitable donations and so forth.
And even if you're just getting started. You're in college right now and
you just want some ideas for thefuture. Give him a call. It's
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free, complimentary. You don't haveto do If you got a positive suggestion
for you, you don't even haveto use him to implement it. So
it's worth the investment of your timeto have a discussion. So Carl Tony
at two on four A three seventhree five one two. That's two one
four A three seven three five onetwo. Or you can go out to
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his website it's TRIPLEW dot independent APGfor Advanced Planninggroup dot com and let him
know doctor Doug referred you to him. All right, we just have a
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few minutes left. I want tobe a little bit selective here. The
Boston Celtics. This is from Deadline. This talks about the team going up
for sale by low sale high.That seems to be the strategy at work
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in recent sales of NBA teams,the most recent being the story Boston Celtics.
The club's ownership group, Boston BasketballPartners, LLC, announced today it's
intention to sell all the shares ofthe team. The sell is likely to
set a record for an NBA franchise. The announcement comes just weeks after the
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Celtics win a record eighteenth NBA championship. It also comes just hours after the
team locked in the core players whowon that championship, including Jason Tatum,
who got the largest contract in leaguehistory today, a five year, three
hundred and fifteen million dollar deal,in Derek White a four year, one
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hundred and twenty five point nine milliondollar extension. Now, I was having
a discussion the other day speaking ofinsurance in Colin, Tony. There are
all kinds of things you can ensure. You've got to find a you know,
insurance carrier that's willing to underwrite it. But specially athletes. They have
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these long term contracts. You wantto have some protection because you never know
when that freak injury might happen andyou can't fulfill the rest of your contract.
But you don't want your contract valueto just completely or the remaining value
to vaporize in. What you cando is you can get insurance on hazards
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like that. But there's all kindsof things you can ensure. It's not
just you know, sports athletes andyour house and your car and all that.
You can really get creative if You'relooking for a way to de risk
some situations, so continue with thisarticle. Also fortuitous, the NBA is
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on the cusp of what should beits biggest media rites deal. Ever we'th
seventy six billion dollars. That dealis expected by many to be the peak
of agreements for the league, withsubsequent deal tolls declining. It is expected
to be coupled with exorbitant expansion feesin co many years as the league looks
to expand its number of teams.Those fees are shared among owners of existing
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franchises. Case appoints the team theCeltics beat last month and win the championship,
the Dallas Mavericks, an owner ofMark Cuban no slass himself at the
art of Bilo sell high. Cubanreceived approval in December to sell the team
for about three and a half billiondollars. That's a cool three plus billion
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dollars over his purchase price, andCuban will reportedly retain twenty seven percent of
the team and may well retained controledbasketball operations. According to the Sports Cuban
has expressed concern at the broadcast dealafter this one, likely after twenty thirty
could fall victim to the sports broadcastrights bubble bursting. This record sale price
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for an NBA team is the fourbillion dollar Matt Ishbia paid in twenty twenty
two for the Phoenix Suns. WhilePhoenix is a hot market and has a
good roster, it doesn't come closeto the reigning champs, who have a
better roster, a rabid fan base, and arguably the greatest lore of any
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team in the league. Boston BasketballPartners, LLC said this sale is being
made for a state and family planningconsiderations. The managing board expects to sell
the majority interest in twenty twenty fourearly twenty twenty five, with the balance
closing in twenty twenty eight. Let'ssee what else we got. Oh,
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we've got to cover this. Here'swhat is really in Taco Bill's infamous beef.
This is from the takeouts from afew days ago. The late nineties
and early two thousands were a wildtime, with Brittany and Justin wearing matching
Denham get ups, and everybody allpanicked that the internet would go couput the
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turning of the century that was theY two K deal. Then there's the
rumor which nearly everyone heard and likelyperpetuated that Taco Bell's beef is Grade D,
which is fit for human consumption,Grade D but edible or Grade F
per snows. It's a tail thathas followed the fast food chain for decades,
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even despite Taco Bell's new cooler reputation. But as it turns out,
it's simply not true. According tothe company, the season beef is made
using one hundred percent USDA Premium beef. It goes on to say that like
home cooks making meat for Taco Night, Taco Bell prepares their beef by simmering
it, draining it of excess fat, and then with the chain special blend
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of spice. Still, customers intwenty eleven were shocked when they discovered the
meat contained only eighty eight percent beef, wondering what the other twelve percent could
be. It turns out the answeris relatively mundane. The non beef elements
of Taco bell beef are mostly seasoningsand binders. In twenty eleven, in
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Alabama, law firm brought a classaction law suit against the company, alleging
that the past food chain inappropriate labeledits meat is seasoned ground beef when it
only contained thirty six percent beef.The law seait was eventually drawn. However,
that year saw Taco Bell spent threemillion dollars on a TV advertising campaign
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in debunk once and for all therumors about its meat. Part of that
campaign included an explainer on its websitethat has since been replaced with other texts
that detailed what the other twelve percentof the ground beef consisted. Of the
spices and buying the binders, especially, Taco Bill realized might still scare some
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people, so in twenty fourteen itacknowledge is this strangeness of the names,
but reassured consumers that they were allFDA approved. It even went through them
to describe the purpose of each one. One example was maltodext in, which
sounds a little off putting, butit's just a form of sugar. It's
also worth noting that the recipe forTaco Bell seasoned beef has changed since all
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this went down in twenty eleven andtwenty fourteen, for example, and no
longer contains way a wheat and soyonly soy. Now, Taco Bell hasn't
addressed these changes in the public statement, so there is no saying for sure
whether The eighty eight percent beef twelvepercent spices and binders ratio still holds up
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per Snopes, which does an excellentjob of breaking down the myth of Taco
Bells. Ground beef is Grade D. No such type of meat exists.
There are, in fact eight USDeight grades from best quality to worst,
Prime Choice, Select Standard, Commercial, utility, cutter, and canner.
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Anything that wouldn't fall under one ofthese categories that is unfit for human consumption
doesn't end up anywhere humans can consumeit. So where did the rumors come
from? The truth is no onereally knows. It's just one of those
things that started and then caught fire. Perhaps it has something to do with
Taco Bells relatively inexpensive pricing. Eventoday, the chain has some of the
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lowest prices of any fast food restaurants. So there you go. Where's the
beef. It's clitter a pillar?What's said? You know? No?
All right, yeah, that's it. Remember you can't listen to or bag
random show, and you can't lookdough without duugh next next week,