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The Falcons have an interesting dynamic at quarterback, and it could be Kirk Cousins’ last opportunity to cement himself as the starter this weekend in Minnesota. The veteran returns to face his former team, with a tall task ahead of him. Brian Flores and this Vikings defense is one of the best in the league, known for their excessive blitzing, which presents a challenging wrinkle for a signal caller who has struggled against pressure. Raheem Morris has a difficult decision looming if Cousins turns in another stinker. I don’t even think it’ll be a question if the Falcons lose because of Cousins. In fact, a rival general manager told Jason La Canfora that Morris wouldn’t have a choice. “It’s a big deal when you make that change,” said the GM. “You’re doing more than just changing the quarterback; you are sending a signal to your locker room. Especially after what they just paid to get him there. It doesn’t sound like they’re there yet. But if he plays another game like he did last week, they’re not going to have a choice. They’re going to have to try something else.” Against the Broncos, the entire offense was pathetic. Against the Saints, the offense moved the ball but stalled in the red zone, with Younghoe Koo uncharacteristically missing three field goals. However, against the Chargers, a lot can be blamed on Kirk Cousins. He had three of the worst interceptions I’ve ever seen, one in the flats and one in the endzone, in particular. Those are throws you’d expect from a Day 2 rookie, not a 13-year starter. The Falcons need more out of Cousins, but some think he doesn’t have anymore to give. “He still doesn’t look right,” said one scout to La Canfora. “There’s no juice on his throws. Everything is coming from his arm. He’s not pushing off normally.” NFL analyst Brian Baldinger said: “The arm isn’t the same arm anymore. The ball is dying on him.” That’s some pretty damning analysis from respected people. Of course, Kirk Cousins still has a chance to seize this opportunity to cement the Falcons atop the division and his place as the starter. There’s a lot on the line for the Falcons this Sunday. — This article first appeared on SportsTalkATL and was syndicated with permission.Jaguar's Type 00 concept car: Redefining EV landscapeAt the 46th All India Public Relations Conference held in Raipur from December 20-22, 2024, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) was honored with eight prestigious national awards by the Public Relations Society of India (PRSI). The awards were presented in recognition of SAIL's excellence in communication and its various PR initiatives. SAIL received accolades across multiple categories, showcasing the company's commitment to effective communication, digital engagement, and fostering stakeholder relationships. The categories in which SAIL was awarded include: E-Newsletter for SAIL Track Corporate Film (English) Best Communication Campaigns (Internal Publics) for SAIL Gaurav Diwas celebration House Journal (English) for SAIL News Best PR Programme for Promoting Science & Technology for its steel plant technologies Best Use of Social Media in a Corporate Campaign for promoting green steel Corporate Website Annual Report SAIL's Commitment to Effective Communication Speaking about the recognition, Shri Amarendu Prakash, Chairman of SAIL, expressed his pride in the company's achievements. He stated, “These awards underscore the various efforts of our communication initiatives in enhancing SAIL's image and outreach. SAIL has always given due emphasis on effective communication, which plays a crucial role in shaping the company's image and forging better stakeholder relationships. This recognition is a testimony to SAIL's dedication to excellence in communication. All employees of SAIL have appreciated this achievement. As we move forward, we will continue to innovate and uphold the highest standards in all our communication endeavors.” The Role of PR in SAIL's Growth The PRSI National Awards 2024 highlight the importance of corporate communications in advancing SAIL's strategic vision. The company's emphasis on internal communication through initiatives like SAIL Gaurav Diwas and its focus on science and technology through steel plant technologies showcase its innovative approaches to stakeholder engagement. The recognition for digital platforms, such as the corporate website, social media campaigns, and the SAIL Track e-newsletter, reflects SAIL's adaptability to digital communication channels and its commitment to promoting green steel and sustainable practices. This acknowledgment further reinforces SAIL's position as a leader in both the steel industry and corporate communication, paving the way for continued growth and engagement with its stakeholders, customers, and employees.
November tops year for juvenile arrests, but none related to new law aimed at youthful offenders, police say
AP News Summary at 11:04 a.m. ESTThe New Orleans Saints officially placed TE Taysom Hill on injured reserve on Friday, per the NFL Transactions wire. Tests earlier this week confirmed the Saints’ fears that Hill is out for the rest of the season with a knee injury. Ian Rapoport repoted Hill tore his ACL and suffered additional damage in his knee. He went down in Sunday’s loss to the Rams and had to be carted off the field. Hill, 34, wound up signing on with the Packers as an undrafted free agent out of BYU back in 2017. He was waived and later claimed off of waivers by the Saints. Hill played out the final year of his rookie contract before receiving a restricted tender from the Saints last year. New Orleans signed Hill to a two-year deal worth $21 million a month later. Hill’s deal was set to void before the 2022 season, but the Saints gave Hill a sizable contract extension . He’s entering the final year of that deal and due a $10 million base salary in 2025. In 2024, Hill appeared in eight games for the Saints and rushed for 278 yards on 39 carries (7.1 YPA) and six touchdowns to go along with 23 receptions on 31 targets for 187 yards. This article first appeared on NFLTradeRumors.co and was syndicated with permission.
California has enough problems without making people endure political stunts. That’s just what the California Air Resource Board did by providing a subsidy up to $2,000 to buy an electric bike, part of the California E-Bike Incentive Project. That’s the average price of a new e-bike, according to REI. The idea is to get people out of gas-guzzling cars and onto bikes to reduce climate change. Costing $3 million for just 1,500 grants, the application deadline was Dec. 18, but the website announced soon there will be new application windows. Applicants must apply online, be a California resident 18 or older and earn a household income less than the 300% of the federal poverty level, currently $93,600 for a family of four. According to the website of the program, “Applicants who either live in a disadvantaged community or low-income community” or who “have an income at or below 225% of” the federal poverty line will be prioritized for the subsidy. CARB is very proud of itself for this program. “By using e-bikes, people can get around and meet everyday needs while improving air quality,” said Steven Cliff, CARB’s executive officer, in a press release. “Prioritizing equity and access is key as we work to achieve our zero-emissions goals, and this incentive program will support those efforts by helping e-bikes be part of the solution.” For all the buzzwords, though, it’s obvious there isn’t really much to this program. The gimmick will bring “imperceptible impact on environmental outcomes,” Mark Scribner told us; he’s the senior transportation policy analyst at the Los Angeles-based Reason Foundation. “This is political posturing. It confers private benefits on recipients, but will fail a social cost-benefit test.” That’s right. Statista Market Insights estimates 1.6 million e-bikes were sold nationally in 2024. There’s no breakout, but equivalent sales in California could be 192,000. The 1,500 e-bike grants, if all are for purchases above that amount, would goose sales just 0.78%. Another issue is safety. A July study by UCSF found, “Electric Scooter and Bike Accidents Are Soaring Across the U.S.” From 2017-22, e-bike injuries doubled each year, while e-scooter injuries rose 45%. Co-lead author Adrian Fernandez, MD, chief resident with the UCSF Department of Urology, called the findings “an urgent need for added safety measures.” Last July, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1774, which banned devices to make the e-bikes go faster than the 28 mph limit currently allowed by law. But the devices could be brought in from other states. Another problem is kids riding e-bikes irresponsibly. Although underage for the grants, kids obviously will be driving many of the subsidized e-bikes. We’ll examine the new safety bills as they come. But CARB should put the brakes on subsidizing expensive e-bikes that won’t do anything for the climate but might help put a few more people in the hospital. If government officials want to spend their own money helping people buy e-bikes, fine. But government shouldn’t be wasting time and money with efforts like this.From Galaxy players to coaches, Greg Vanney, Kevin Hartman and Dan Calichman have restored a winning culture – and the payoff is Saturday's MLS Cup final
We all know what happens when voice acting goes wrong. There’s a reason your brain still reads "It's-a-me, Mario!" in Charles Martinet’s legendary voice, not whatever Chris Pratt’s doing (or isn’t doing) in The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Paramount's Sonic the Hedgehog family flicks are playing the same adaptation game, but avoid making the same mistakes when it comes to gimmick casting that doesn’t benefit the role. That's the problem with celebrity stunt casting in animated movies and why it should be avoided — you sacrifice quality for a (hopeful) box office cheat code. Everyone's favorite Parks and Recreation brat isn't just Ben Schwartz-ing through Sonic's dialogue. The actor strives to honor Sonic's voice in past SEGA video games while putting his spin on a more juvenile character interpretation. There's an art to Schwartz's voice acting and acknowledgment of Sonic's prior iterations. Like Mario, Sonic's voice appears in television shows and video games when speech became more than 8-bit garble or speech synthesis. Why would you want to erase all that history and relation? The difference in quality between The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Sonic the Hedgehog film franchise depicts the stark contrast between memorable and forgettable revamps. Universal and Illumination's mushroom-eating adaptation opts for the aforementioned celebrity stunt castinga cold and transactional method focused on maximizing profits at all costs. Sonic the Hedgehog invests in transformative voice acting, where the draw isn't who's behind pixelated recordings but the characters on screen. It's an animated film's job to immerse audiences in fantastical worlds, which the hybrid live-action Sonic movies accomplish whether in the fictional town of Green Hills, modern-day Tokyo, or a digitized mushroom planet. That’s because no matter the backdrop, Schwartz and company want you to believe Sonic, Tails, and the whole gang are real. They don’t want the credit themselves. The Super Mario Bros. Movie boasts a stacked cast, but what do they bring to their character personalities? Jack Black grumbles and croons as a serviceable Bowser (Black himself is a cartoon character, so that checks out), but even impressionist Keegan-Michael Key's Toad is oddly flat. Luigi sounds like Charlie Day but vaguely New Yorker, Donkey Kong is straight-up Seth Rogen, Princess Peach is an unaltered Anya Taylor-Joy — there's no passion behind vocal development. It's the equivalent of dialogue cosplay if purchased on Temu, like slapping a novelty mustache on Chris Pratt while he holds a plunger. Meanwhile, Ben Schwartz has a motormouth zip about his words that matches Sonic's hyperspeed lifestyle. Schwartz can be hilarious as Sonic does his best Quicksilver from X-Men impression during slow-motion action scenes, but also heartfelt and emotional when Sonic faces insurmountable odds or learns everlasting lessons. There's depth to Schwartz's vocal performance that speaks to the values of professional voice acting, which is infinitely harder than it looks. You’re reading lines off scripts in silent isolation, unable to interact with co-stars who’ll share scenes with your pixelated and dubbed role — yet Schwartz makes it look easy. Sonic never feels out of place next to James Marsten or Jim Carrey, as Schwartz’s range, through sound only, hits more dimensions than live-action actors benefitting from all their theatrical tools. What's distracting and frustrating about The Super Mario Bros. Movie is how all the film's voices have countless reference points, none of which the studio cares to duplicate or reward. When novels or comic books are adapted to film, there's a freedom to cast without direct audible comparisons. But a video game series with hours upon hours of line readings from voice actors who are still readily available for role reprisals? It's not only disrespectful to the artists who've mastered their crafts and helped galvanize a studio's brand, but distracting from a fanbase standpoint. Slaslfilm’s BJ Colangelo makes a compelling case to "stop screwing with legacy characters," and she's right. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 takes its reverence for its source material a step farther,, introducing beloved animal buddies Miles "Tails" Prower and Knuckles the Echidna. Now, Tails has one of the more unique voices in the Sonic universe — so Paramount went right to the source by hiring Tails' voice actress since 2010, Colleen O'Shaughnessey. Knuckles eventually went to Idris Elba, but not as stunt casting. Elba's take on Knuckles understands the fight-first character, echoing his Drax-like barbarian mannerisms with a gruff warrior's tone. There's even a video of Elba wearing personalized Knuckles gloves during recording sessions so he can disappear into the role, which helps us forget there's an Englishman in a box somewhere reading lines. Then there's the casting of Keanu Reeve as Shadow in Sonic The Hedgehog 3. A handful of voice actors have put their spin on Shadow as a baddie and anti-hero, which Reeves manipulates into his John Wickian hedgehog. You can hear Reeves in Shadow's bluntness and gravel, but there's a more profound parallel. Shadow's history is one of coldness and tragedy at the hands of G.U.N., which Reeves handles with empathy. Reeves himself has dealt with unthinkable hardships throughout his life, tying this sympathetic bond between actor and character. Keanu Reeves isn’t playing Shadow the Hedgehog, he is Shadow the Hedgehog, and the parallels between actor and character help develop a well-rounded alien who is himself on screen, not the man behind the words (even if he sounds just like him). Each actor's connection to their colorful counterparts is the secret sauce that's elevated Paramount's Sonic franchise above other video game adaptations. The Super Mario Bros. Movie sold itself on the backs of Chris Pratt, Jack Black, and the entire ensemble cast. Sonic the Hedgehog has enlisted equally impressive stars, but these movies aren't about Keanu Reeves or Idris Elba. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Shadow are the stars — the characters are who we’re talking about after after the credits roll. When you watch any Sonic the Hedgehog after or before The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the debate over celebrity stunt casting falls apart. As an Italian, I laughed when Chris Pratt was announced as Mario but kept an open mind only to be proven wrong. As a Sonic fan who saw those nightmare first renderings of Sonic with teeth, I entered even more nervous — once again proven wrong. Paramount's voice cast choices have been aces thus far, endearing these movies to Sonic fans instead of pushing them away. Let's give kudos where appropriate — the fantastic voice actors selflessly bringing Sonic and his buddies to life on the big screen.Groundbreaking broadcaster Greg Gumbel, 78, dies
McAlester resident spreads kindness, love through social mediaNone
Co-founder, HeartLife Foundation Age 39 I’m most proud of launching the Canadian and Global Patient and Caregiver Charter of Rights through HeartLife. This charter, endorsed by over 50 organizations globally and translated into 17 languages, laid the foundation for the Canadian Heart Function Alliance, uniting more than 200 researchers and 60 patient partners on national and global projects and raising over $27 million to advance heart health. Our charter and subsequent policy framework led to the introduction of Bill S-284 in the Senate—a groundbreaking national act focused on heart failure, driving policy change and improving patient care across Canada. Leaving a stable career in finance to fully commit to HeartLife and heart health advocacy. Moving away from a well-defined path meant embracing uncertainty, both financially and professionally, but the mission to improve heart failure care and patient rights outweighed the risks. This choice allowed me to co-found HeartLife, launch our charter and collaborate with the Canadian Heart Function Alliance. While challenging, this transition has led to meaningful impact in heart health advocacy, fulfilling work and progress toward policy changes that improve lives across Canada. I lead by example, immersing myself in every facet of the organization to understand its challenges and strengths. Leadership, to me, is about amplifying those around me—supporting and encouraging my team to reach their full potential. I strive to bring out the best in each person and work collaboratively to achieve our shared mandate. By fostering an environment of learning and empowerment, I believe we can drive greater impact and create a resilient, mission-driven organization. The biggest lesson I’ve learned in business is to never be the smartest person in the room. Success comes from surrounding yourself with experts and leveraging their unique skills and perspectives. By bringing in knowledgeable partners and collaborators, you can amplify your impact, make better decisions and drive the organization further than any individual could alone. Embracing diverse expertise not only strengthens the work but also fosters an environment of continuous learning and growth. Keep a balance. To be successful in business, it’s essential to maintain balance in all aspects of life and build a strong support network. This foundation helps you stay grounded, resilient and focused, reminding you that you don’t have to do it all alone. My definition of success is always evolving, and honestly, I’ll let you know when I get there. For now, success means making a meaningful impact, learning constantly and building something that truly helps others. It’s less about a final destination and more about the progress, purpose and positive change along the way. Outside of work, I’m most passionate about spending time with my partner Jessica and our 15-month-old daughter, Mara. I also love to travel and take every opportunity to explore new places. And, of course, there’s my 1969 Pontiac Firebird. At HeartLife, Jillianne and I are always asking, “What’s next?” There’s still much to accomplish—our goal is to make heart failure a national priority and drive legislation for a comprehensive national strategy for heart failure and cardiovascular disease. I’d like to thank my partner, Jessica—her tireless commitment and unwavering support drive me every day to be better. She’s truly my biggest champion. I’m also deeply grateful to my co-founder, Jillianne, whose perseverance and resilience inspire me daily. Thanks to my family—mom, dad, sisters, extended family and friends—who always believed in me, with dad sparking my journey into business. To the HeartLife community across Canada, I do this work for you. Special thanks to Barinder and Ash, the incredible individuals behind the scenes, whose efforts continually push me to excel. My health-care team have my deepest appreciation. So many have shaped my life, and I’m endlessly grateful to each of you. If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together Aside from our own (HeartLife)—BC Children’s Hospital, The Ronald McDonald House Charity and St. Paul’s Hospital I unwind by golfing and spending quality time with my daughter and partner—though daughter’s not on the golf course with me just yet! Granville Island, hands down Di Beppe for the lasagna, Sushi Loku for aburi oshi sushi by James Clear and by Paulo Coelho. My best habit is starting each day with The Daily Stoic and completing my five-minute journal. This routine keeps me grounded, focused and reflective It’s hard to choose just one B.C. leader—Anthony von Mandl, Peter Dhillon and Wally Oppal all inspire through impactful leadership I’ve travelled to 36 countries, with a goal of reaching 40 before I turn 40. Oh, and I have had a heart transplant
As of October, the International Cocoa Organization was estimating global cocoa production to be down 14%, creating a deficit of 42,000 tons, the largest on record. The Ivory Coast and Ghana, the world's two largest producers, saw production declines due to El Niño causing dry growing conditions, while pests, diseases, and fertilizer shortages contributed to their troubles. A ton of cocoa, the main ingredient of the chocolate we will soon be buying for our sweethearts, exploded from $420 at the end of 2023 to $1,185 this week. Ag community looks back Weather and climate change: Droughts, flooding and hurricanes headlined the ag news in the U.S. this year, affecting crops like soybeans and corn in the Midwest and devastating growing areas in the Southeast that cover 2.8% of our GNP. A dry Mediterranean region saw a hot growing season raise olive and olive oil prices, while corn in South America suffered from La Niña-influenced drought. Meanwhile, El Niño’s heavy rains in West Africa brought disease that helped shoot chocolate prices to the sky. Dry weather affected rice production in Italy while monsoons in India reduced their rice crops. Ag experts worry that continued erratic weather will reduce crop yields, fluctuate prices and increase food security worries. Disease issues: One of the big ag stories in the U.S. is the H5N1 bird flu, which has affected more than 25 million birds. Egg layers as well as turkeys have seen the greatest losses, but up to 600 dairy herds have also faced issues from the disease. In addition, some farm workers have seen mild illness and one severe human case caused by a backyard flock occurred in Louisiana. Poultry and egg prices remain a problem while beef and pork prices change as food choices fluctuate. Political change: Recent elections bring potential policy changes to the ag community. Tariff issues in the first Trump administration created the potential for price fluctuation as foreign countries retaliated with tariffs of their own. When foreign markets close, the ag world often faces long-term losses. The Farm Bill received a one-year extension, but farmers had hoped for a long term, five-year bill to provide security and assurance going forward. The new Congress will need to agree on the many different aspects of the bill to secure needed assistance to farmers who face weather uncertainty and world production and trade issues. CME midday prices Price per bushel: March soybeans, $9.93; March corn, $4.54; March wheat, $5.46. February Livestock per 100 pounds: cattle, $190.20; hogs, $84.60. Metals per troy ounce: February gold, $2,631; March silver, $29.90. March copper per pound: $4.12. February Crude oil per barrel: $70.20. February Natural Gas $3.34 per 10,000 MMBTU. March Cocoa $10.00 per pound.Syria's embattled government said Saturday it was setting up a ring of steel around Damascus, state media reported, as rebels on a lightning advance said they were bearing down on the city. "There is a very strong security and military cordon on the far edges of Damascus and its countryside, and no one... can penetrate this defensive line that we, the armed forces, are building," Interior Minister Mohammed al-Rahmoun told state television from the capital. Earlier, President Bashar al-Assad's government denied that the army had withdrawn from areas around Damascus. "Our forces have begun the final phase of encircling the capital," said rebel commander Hassan Abdel Ghani, with the Islamist-led alliance that launched the offensive. The leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group which has headed the assault, told fighters to prepare to take Damascus, just over a week into a renewed offensive in the long dormant conflict. "Damascus awaits you," said HTS's Ahmed al-Sharaa on Telegram, using his real name instead of his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. But the defence ministry insisted: "There is no truth to news claiming our armed forces... have withdrawn" from positions near Damascus. AFP has been unable to independently verify some of the information provided by the government and the rebels, as its journalists cannot reach the areas around Damascus where the rebels say they are present. In a Damascus suburb Saturday, witnesses said protesters toppled a statue of Assad's father, the late president Hafez al-Assad. Similar scenes were witnessed in images shared by local media in the southern city of Daraa and in online footage verified by AFP from Hama, north of Damascus. "The rebels entered Hama, it was a great joy for us -- something we had been waiting for since 2011," said resident Maymouna Jawad, of the year Assad's crackdown on democracy protests escalated into civil war. The presidency denied reports that Assad had left Damascus, saying he was "following up on his work and national and constitutional duties from the capital". The HTS leader said in a CNN interview Friday that "the goal of the revolution remains the overthrow of this regime". - Fears of 'chaos' - As government forces fall back, a war monitor and Abdel Ghani said rebels were within 20 kilometres of Damascus. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said government forces had ceded more key ground, losing control of all of southern Daraa province, cradle of the 2011 uprising. The army said it was "redeploying and repositioning" in Daraa and another southern province, Sweida. The Britain-based Observatory said troops were also evacuating posts in Quneitra, near the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Israel's military said Saturday it was helping UN peacekeepers in the Syrian part of the Golan to repel an attack "by armed individuals" bordering the UN-patrolled buffer zone. Jordan has urged its citizens to leave neighbouring Syria "as soon as possible", as have Assad ally Russia and the United States, which both keep troops in Syria. After the HTS-led rebels seized Aleppo and Hama earlier in their offensive, Daraa was taken by local armed groups, the Observatory said. An AFP correspondent in the province saw local fighters guarding public property and civil institutions. In Sweida city, a local fighter told AFP that after government forces had withdrawn "from their positions and headquarters, we are now securing and protecting vital facilities". In the central Homs area, a key stepping stone to Damascus, the Observatory said government forces had brought "large reinforcements" and stopped the rebel advance. Government forces have also pulled out of Deir Ezzor in the east, with Kurdish-led forces saying they had moved in. An Iraqi security source told AFP that Baghdad has allowed in hundreds of Syrian soldiers, who "fled the front lines", through the Al-Qaim border crossing. A second source put the figure at 2,000 troops, including officers. - 'Find peace' - HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. Proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Western governments, it has sought to soften its image in recent years. The Islamist rebels have sought to reassure minority groups living in areas they now control. "We ask that all sects be reassured... for the era of sectarianism and tyranny has gone away forever," said Abdel Ghani. Since the offensive began last week, at least 826 people, mostly combatants but also including 111 civilians, have been killed, the Observatory said. The United Nations said the violence has displaced 370,000 people. UN special envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen called for "urgent political talks" to implement Security Council Resolution 2254 of 2015, which set out a roadmap for a negotiated settlement. US President-elect Donald Trump, in Paris for the reopening of Notre Dame cathedral, posted on his Truth Social platform that the United States should "not get involved". US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Friday for a "political solution to the conflict", in a call with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. After Fidan and his Iranian and Russian counterparts discussed Syria in Qatar on Saturday, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said they agreed on the initiation of "political dialogue between the Syrian government and legitimate opposition groups". Russia's Sergei Lavrov said it was "inadmissible" to allow a "terrorist group to take control" of Syrian territory. Moscow and Tehran have supported Assad's government and army during the war, as has Lebanese armed group Hezbollah. A source close to Hezbollah said it had sent 2,000 fighters into Syria, to an area near the Lebanese border, "to defend its positions". Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government backs some armed groups in northern Syria, said Saturday that Syria "is tired of war, blood and tears". "Our wish is for our neighbour, Syria, to find the peace and tranquility it has been dreaming of for 13 years." By Aya Iskandarani
LADY'S ISLAND — A quarter century ago, a Beech E-90 airplane registered to the University of South Carolina Athletic Department took off from Hilton Head airport. Dewey "Sonny" Foster piloted the plane, and he was a veteran of the skies, logging almost two-and-a-half years in the air. He flew commercial airlines, and served in the Air National Guard, according to the National Air and Space Museum . Foster broke out of the clouds at 900 feet, his co-pilot Joe Baier with him. They were headed to the Beaufort County Airport, traveling to pick up their esteemed passenger on the ground, Gamecocks football coach Lou Holtz. He was waiting for their arrival in the early evening hours of Dec. 19, 1999. Holtz was approaching the end of a difficult year, having led the team to a winless campaign while also dealing with health issues afflicting his wife and son, and the death of his mother. Pilot error caused missing F-35 jet and ejection over North Charleston, investigation finds The plane descended about 480 feet-per-minute, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report. It was a dark night, with no visible horizon. Baier said he could see lights, but no airport. Then he heard a thump. He thought the landing gear collided with the ground. The seven-passenger propeller plane cartwheeled into a wooded area on Oak Island by the edge of a marsh, almost two nautical miles northeast of the airport. "Get me out of here!" Foster yelled. Baier said he struggled to unbuckled his seatbelt, but he eventually freed himself and told people approaching the downed plane that the pilot was still inside. A fire started after the crash, the county's emergency management director told The Post and Courier at the time . Beaufort County Sheriff P.J. Tanner remembered responding to the scene. It was his first year holding the office, and this was his first crash as sheriff. Law enforcement's role was to secure the scene while waiting for federal investigators to conduct their inspection, he said. Even though this was his first plane crash leading the office, he said the incident didn't phase him. "I've been around everything you could go to. It's a terrible thing to see," he said. "Crime scenes are crime scenes. Doesn't matter what type of scene it is. They're all bad. I've never been to a good crime scene." Boeing notches 13 jet deliveries, with 2 SC-made 787s, in strike-shortened November Baier was transported to Beaufort Memorial Hospital. His body was gashed along his forehead, shoulder and right hand, but he was released three days later. Foster died after vertebrae in his neck were partially dislocated. Holtz previously told the newspaper he had flown with Foster about 30 times prior to the crash. The two developed trust and camaraderie, qualities that a football coach like Holtz lives and breathes. Holtz was visiting the Lowcountry for a recruiting trip. After the crash, he grappled with his own mortality and mourned his friend's death. "This is not about me. It's about losing a friend, but at the same time I feel very blessed. I feel very lucky. At Christmas, I have a lot to be thankful for. Right now, my heart goes out to Mrs. Foster and the family," he told the newspaper. "The only thing you can do is go on." On Holtz went. Turning around the University of South Carolina football program, which won back-to-back Outback Bowls in the next two years. His Gamecocks coaching career ended in 2004. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008 . Holtz guided six different programs to bowl games across 33 years. He led the Notre Dame Fighting Irish to 100 wins and the 1988 national title. After he retired from the sidelines, he became a college football analyst. Even though the 87-year-old no longer delivers takes for ESPN, he still released his picks for the college football playoff on social media .The Atlanta Falcons drafting of Michael Penix Jr. just six weeks after signing Kirk Cousins to a $180 million contract doesn't seem like that much of a head-scratcher anymore. Penix, the eighth overall pick in this year's draft, was supposed to serve as Cousins' understudy for a year or two, a plan that was scuttled when Cousins quickly lost the zip and accuracy on his passes and his grip on the starting job. It was hard to argue with making the change after Cousins had nine picks and one touchdown pass in his last five starts — but it was a daring move nonetheless with the Falcons trailing first-place Tampa Bay by a single game with three weeks left. Penix made the move pay off with a solid first NFL start in the Falcons' 34-7 rout of the New York Giants on Sunday that bolstered Atlanta's playoff hopes , and the Falcons (8-7) moved back into first place in the NFC South with the Buccaneers' loss at Dallas on Sunday night. The left-hander was not at all overwhelmed by the moment, completing 18 of 27 passes for 202 yards — numbers that would’ve been better if not for at least three dropped passes, one of which Kyle Pitts bobbled right into the hands of a New York defender for Penix’s lone interception. “He went out and played almost flawless football,” coach Raheem Morris said. Cousins will almost certainly be looking for his fourth team in 2025. If the Falcons cut ties as expected, they'll have paid Cousins $90 million for 14 games. Cousins' career earnings are about $321 million and his record is 84-77-2, including a 1-3 mark in the playoffs and 7-7 this season. In the spirit of expedited judgments, let's take a gander at how other quarterbacks have fared with their new teams in 2024. The Pittsburgh Steelers landed the biggest bargain of the season in Wilson, whom they signed for the veteran's minimum of $1.21 million, leaving his former team, the Denver Broncos, on the hook for the remaining $37.79 million of his 2024 salary. Wilson's calf injury in camp forced the Steelers to start Justin Fields, who went 4-2 before Mike Tomlin made the risky switch to Wilson, who's gone 6-3 with 15 TD throws and four interceptions. With the Steelers (10-5) playoff-bound, Wilson will make his first postseason appearance since 2020. The only question is whether it'll be at home as AFC North champ or on the road as a wild-card. They're tied with the Ravens atop the division but currently own the tiebreaker. This was expected to be a rebuilding year in Minnesota after the Vikings lost Cousins in free agency. They signed Darnold, the third overall pick in 2018, to a $10 million, one-year contract and drafted national champion J.J. McCarthy with the 10th overall pick. McCarthy tore the meniscus in his right knee during the preseason opener and has undergone two surgeries, opening the way for Darnold's breakthrough season. Darnold brought a 21-35 career record with him to Minneapolis and all he's done is go 13-2 while setting career highs with 32 touchdown passes, 3,776 passing yards and a 67.2% completion percentage. The Vikings are tied with the Lions atop the packed NFC North and the division crown could come down to Minnesota's season finale at Detroit on Jan. 5. The Las Vegas Raiders signed Minshew to a two-year, $25 million contract and he beat out incumbent Aidan O'Connell for the starting gig. But he only went 2-7 and sustained a season-ending broken collarbone in a Week 12 loss to the Broncos, opening the door for O'Connell (1-4) to return. The Raiders' 19-14 win over Jacksonville on Sunday snapped a 10-game skid but might have taken them out of the Shedeur Sanders sweepstakes. They are 3-12, a game behind the Giants (2-13), who jettisoned QB Daniel Jones less than two years after signing him to a four-year, $160 million contract and have gone with Drew Lock and Tommy DeVito instead. The Chicago Bears had high hopes after drafting Williams with the No. 1 overall pick, but it might turn out that the second QB taken — Washington's Jayden Daniels — is better than the first as was the case last year when C.J. Stroud outperformed Carolina's Bryce Young. Williams has a terrific TD-to-INT ratio of 19-5, but the Bears are 4-11 and have lost nine in a row. Their last win came way back on Oct. 13 against Jacksonville. The 2023 Heisman Trophy winner out of LSU has led the Washington Commanders (10-5) to the cusp of their first playoff appearance since 2020. His bolstered his Rookie of the Year credentials with a five-TD performance Sunday in leading the Commanders to a 36-33 win over the Philadelphia Eagles. For the year, Daniels has 22 TD throws and eight interceptions. The former Auburn and Oregon star hasn't looked much like a rookie after starting an NCAA QB record 61 times in college. The Broncos (9-6) could snap an eight-year playoff drought with a win Sunday at Cincinnati thanks to Nix's steady play , Sean Payton's exhaustive guidance and Denver's traditionally stingy defense. Nix was drafted 12th overall after the Broncos released Wilson despite a a whopping $85 million dead money charge on top of the $37.79 million they're paying Wilson to play for Pittsburgh this year. With 22 TDs and 11 interceptions, Nix has almost matched Russell's win total (11-19) in his two seasons in Denver. AP Sports Writer Paul Newberry in Atlanta contributed to this report. Behind the Call analyzes the biggest topics in the NFL during the season. AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Scott Wisniewski is president and chief strategy officer of AST SpaceMobile , a satellite company that's trying to bring connectivity literally everywhere -- the desert, the ocean, the air, everywhere. In this podcast, Motley Fool host Ricky Mulvey caught up with Wisniewski to discuss: What universal connectivity actually achieves. The operational challenges of getting something as large as a cell tower onto something as small as a rocket. The developing "land grab" in low-earth orbit. To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center . To get started investing, check out our beginner's guide to investing in stocks . A full transcript follows the video. This video was recorded on Dec. 21, 2024. Scott Wisniewski: That's moving around as we live, work and travel. That's dead zones where it's not lit up in certain frequencies or any frequencies with any towers. It's gray zones where your phone just doesn't work so great. As you start getting out of the suburbs of the US, many of us know and experience that one or two bars that does limited or poor service. Being able to solve those sorts of issues is the killer app for us. Mary Long: I'm Mary Long, and that's Scott Wisniewski. He's the President and Chief Strategy Officer of AST SpaceMobile. It's a company that builds its own satellites. Think of them as foldable cell towers, and it sends those objects into low Earth orbit, the span of space that's a mere 250 miles away from us here on Earth. Those satellites make up the world's first space based cellular broadband network. AST's goal is to make direct to your phone connectivity available everywhere and anywhere, that's literally anywhere in the desert, on the water, on a plane, anywhere. My colleague Ricky Mulvey caught up with Wisniewski to discuss how to get objects that are as large as one bedroom apartments up into space, solving cold fusion type problems, and the space Internet to killer app pipeline. Ricky Mulvey: Earlier this fall, something exciting happened for your company, which is that SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets carried your satellites, the BlueBird satellites into Low Earth Orbit. There's six of them up there now, and these will provide Internet direct to cellphones. I guess I should first say, congratulations on this. This is a pretty monumental achievement for your company. Scott Wisniewski: Thank you. Yeah we couldn't be happier we've been up with at it for seven years. These are our commercial satellites. They're starting to get launched, and these are the first five, some of the biggest objects you'll find in space, actually, manmade objects. We're really excited about it and happy to talk more about it today. Ricky Mulvey: I apologize. I said six instead of five. This is one you want to be specific on five BlueBird satellites. Each of these, you said the largest commercial objects in space. Each of these are the size about as you're listening to this. They're the size of a small one bedroom apartment. They had to unfold on the backs of these rockets. To give our listeners a sense, what are some of the operational challenges that your company had to figure out to get these into low Earth orbit? Scott Wisniewski: Sure, well, many. One thing that's important for listeners who may know a little bit about space or follow it just casually, there's not a lot going on in space. We've of course, had a lot of success developing space as a country, starting all the way back in the 50s and 60s and had a bit of a slowdown. Then in the last 10, 20 years, there's been a resurgence. One thing that we've helped do is get large objects that are usable deeply into low Earth orbit and so our satellites unfold, like you said, to about 700 square feet. Think about 20 plus feet on each side. This is important because those objects don't fit into side today's fairings, today's rockets. We've been able to develop a system that very easily deploys these at a low risk. We have developed the IP over many years and derisk it as much as possible. We've also developed the tech to talk directly to cellphones, which is really hard because a cellphone, we all know the cellphone we carry around in our pocket, is relatively small, relatively low power. To be able to talk to that 500,000 miles away is very hard to do it precisely. There's a number of technical challenges we had to overcome, but most the first one you may be referring to is just simply, how do you fit a satellite that big into a rocket so small and then have it unfold and be useful? Ricky Mulvey: When your company is thinking about the larger and larger rockets that are going to be fully operational online, is that part of the scaling challenge for your company right now, which is that a lot of the rockets going into low Earth orbit can only hold like 3-600 pounds worth of payload? Scott Wisniewski: Yeah, well, that's one of the cool things about our company is even four years ago, people were calling this challenge cold fusion impossible. Through a number of technology and business and just simply strategy approaches, we've been able to conquer that challenge with today's technology, with today's rockets. Yes, as rockets get bigger, as they get cheaper, that's a win win win for us and our customers and users. But we work with today's rockets. You know, you mentioned a few uh, payload numbers there. You know, there are many heavy rockets today. We've flown on SpaceX. We've flown on Israt of India. We just recently signed an agreement with New Glenn Blue Origin for their New Glenn rockets. We work with today's technology. We're agnostic to the rocket size, and we work within the regular, essentially, today, there are five meter fairings, which is almost 20 feet. We collapse within that, and we're able to deliver our payload orbit with today's tech. Ricky Mulvey: For someone like me who is less savvy on power, how can I connect to space Internet? For someone listening, the lay person, how is connecting Wi-Fi on my cellphone in my home to my modem, how does that work with your satellites? How am I connecting to the Internet from space? Scott Wisniewski: No, it sounds like an incredible challenge. But we know that radio waves just travel. Because we're actually listening for aliens today, and we know our transmissions go very far out. Radio waves propagate very well. Particularly the radio waves that we work with, which is the low band frequencies that our phones use. It's a matter of very complicated radio frequency stuff, and that's where the company started as our specialty in that, and that's why we're partnered with the wireless operators because that's their specialty. But essentially, putting cell towers from space down to the ground, creating fixed you know, cells that you can wander into, which is the same thing that towers do on the ground. We do that from space. The challenges that arise from that, of course, are distance, which we manage with our large array, because it can be very precise over long distances and deliver it with a lot of power because we've got a big solar panel. Two, we're able to do a lot of these at once. It's a very efficient way to deploy. It's not just one big satellite service a small amount of cellphones and so the challenge is multiple it's. How do you not disrupt terrestrial networks. How do you deliver all this capability from so far away precisely? Importantly, at the founding of the company is a patent that makes the cellphone wait cellphones are used to looking for a signal that's very close, only a couple miles away at most. That's not very far, but 500 miles is actually kind of far for the speed of light. At the core of our company and its founding very early was a patent to make the phone wait a little bit longer. Not so long that you and I will tell, but phones that do things on the order of 5-10 milliseconds, this patent makes the phone wait, and that was foundational for us. Ricky Mulvey: What does that mean? In the next few years with your satellites, would we be able to record, like the video call we're having right now using your BlueBird satellites, or is that something where it would be there would be a lot of lag in there? Scott Wisniewski: No, no leg. One of the cool things about what's happened in the last 10-20 years is really the development of low Earth orbit in a meaningful way. The low Earth orbit, just so you know, that is a shell around the Earth that's very close. That's where the International Space Station is. It's only about 500 miles away. It's very different from geosynchronous orbit, which is about 30-50 times farther. That's where satellites sit in one place and you can have cable you can have TV and whatnot. Leo, it's all about Leo. With Leo, the latency is 20-40 milliseconds, and that means essentially one 25th or one 20th of a second. Human beings don't notice that really, very, very, very few applications do. The one application that notices it is the phone, and that's why we had to come up with this patch. It doesn't sit on the phone. It sits back at the core because at the core of our technology, so we don't touch the phone. The phone in your pocket works. It's backwards compatible, and you don't have to make any changes to the phone. You just have to sign up for the service through your operator today. What that means for us and when you can get the service, we actually have this capability in orbit today. Those first five satellites plus the six that we launched two years ago, that was a test satellite. These six satellites can do this today. I've done video calls like this. There's some embarrassing video of me on the Internet being surprised that it came on and moving quickly. But we can do this today. It's just a matter of how much. So as we launch more satellites, we can expand this capability today. It's not going to be a service we roll out broadly because it's only 30 minutes of coverage a day. We need to get closer to 24 hours a day, and then you'll be able to experience it as a user. But the satellites in orbit today, they can do video calls just like this one. Ricky Mulvey: I want to get to the scaling opportunities and challenges in a moment. When you think about the purpose of AST SpaceMobile and essentially eliminating coverage gaps across the United States and hopefully later in developing parts of the world, what are some use cases that drive you in your work that your team is excited for? Scott Wisniewski: It's exactly the right question, and the cool thing is, it's a hard one to answer because there's so many places to use this tech. From a capability perspective, being able to put large arrays like this in orbit, we can basically cover half the US with one satellite as it's moving overhead and create 2000 different cells that people can roam into. It's basically deploying digital towers for the operator. Anything that a cellphone can do or cellular operator can do, we're going to be able to do, because this is a native cellular platform. This is not a bolt on add on through an app. You basically just wander onto the network like you would a tower. Anything in the cellular world that you can do, you can do with us. The one variation on that that's very important is that we solve the coverage gaps. What can you do that's new? Now that your phone works all the time? Some of our partners, the wireless companies have said over a third of their customers are interested in being connected all the time and willing to pay more for that. For us, we solve all the coverage issues, and that facilitates new use cases. One of the critiques of 5G is that there's no killer app for it, because it provides better service and you're able to build in densification of the network. But at the end of the day, we as users have the world's information in our pocket, and it works 95% of the time, and we're upset about that, and it's crazy. But at the end of the day, that last 5% that we can deliver allows the operators to remind their customer, us, the users, why we love connectivity and fall back in love with connectivity. That's moving around as we live, work and travel, that's dead zones where it's not lit up in certain frequencies or any frequencies with any towers. It's gray zones where your phone just doesn't work so great. As you start getting out of the suburbs of the US, many of us know and experience that one or two bars that does limited or poor service. Being able to solve those sorts of issues is the killer app for us and at least in the developed world. In the developing world this is a global business, there's all kinds of other applications there, too. Ricky Mulvey: When you're looking to get to, I believe, 45-60 BlueBird satellites in order to eliminate these coverage gaps. I'm going to for the purpose of this conversation, skip ahead through the operational challenges of getting those online. If you turn these on full blast for the listener trying to understand this, how much Internet traffic can they handle? Scott Wisniewski: Each of our satellites independently can offer about a million gigabytes per month of usable sellable capacity. The reason I qualify it is because I'm not counting stuff delivered at 2:00 A.M. Or 4:00 A.M. Because there's less usage. I'm counting when it's over useful territory like the US, we estimate with the spectrum that we have available through our partners that we can do about a million gigabytes per month of usable sellable capacity. What that means is we can have a million gigabyte plan users. We can have 10,000,100 megabyte users, and that is scaled by that 45-60 number you talked about. In the US, for instance, being able to deploy millions of gigabytes per month of capacity in places that doesn't exist, that allows you to bring on many users of Internet, many, many, many users of voice, and almost unlimited users of text. This is a real native cellular application that allows us to scale in a meaningful way and deliver that number of users and fulfill our business plan goals. We think that a single digit penetration rate of our partners with this type of service is a very good outcome for the company and very useful for the market. But we can go up from that and build the scale over time. But that's how to think about the scale of this operation. This is not a limited service. This is not an emergency service. This is something that we believe is going to be mainstream and we believe is going to be very exciting for the wireless companies and then also the users, which we see in some of our retail investing community. Ricky Mulvey: You have a very passionate retail investing community, and our friend of the show he's an AST SpaceMobile investor. He wanted to go by Florida Man Omar for the purpose of this question. He wants to know. He's very excited about your technology, but he does see some of it being held up by FCC regulatory filings, and he wants to know he's excited. He wants to be able to use this and test this on his phone. What's the hold up? Is this waiting for the FCC to review your technology, or is this largely in your court? Are you ready for Beta testing among the general population on, like, AT&T services right now? Scott Wisniewski: Yeah, so we launched our five commercial satellites, as you said, back in September, so it's been about two months. That's a normal time frame for us to calibrate and get things going. We've put some cool videos online of these things unfolding, which is very exciting for those of us who are geeks about this stuff. But we're getting very close to be ready to be doing our Beta service, and that's what we filed with the SEC. I'll take the alternative approach here and give the SEC a pat on the back. We've been working with them for years to develop this new service. In fact, they developed new rules about a year and a half ago that they ratified in May of this year to essentially the industry that we've created. They work with us in time for when we need the rules and regs that we get and the approvals that we get. In fact, we reflagged in the US in March because the US had taken such great steps, these new rules, staffing up a whole new space department, a sixth department and so we had great comfort there with the SEC and also with our defense contract pipeline. Then just a few months ago, we got our commercial license. That commercial license covers these first five satellites about halfway. We need to make some modifications to that license, which is what we're waiting on right now. But as we grow, we have full expectation that they'll grow with us, and, in fact, the commissioners there we have good relationships with all of them, and they're very supportive. We got to remember what the SEC does. They protect the integrity of our wireless networks, which is everything. Because we don't our phones do not work. There's 300 million users in the US. It's very, very complicated to manage the airwaves. It's a very densely trafficked set of airwaves and really only someone with technology like us can manage that without disrupting it. They need to protect that. They need to be careful. But we're expecting temporary approval for service on our satellites very soon, and then early next year, we'll be going for commercial approval. Ricky Mulvey: Hopefully we'll be talking again in December of 2025 when I check in with my friend Florimon Omar. Do you think by that point he will have been able to test out your technology on his phone, or is this a case where you don't want to understandably, maybe not give a prediction? Scott Wisniewski: Sure. Well, our plan today is to roll out several thousand Beta users in the US under the STA, the temporary authorization we've asked from the FCC. So we expect to be doing that early next year. But in terms of a broad roll out, I don't want to get ahead of our partners. One of the cool things we haven't talked about yet is how close we are to the wireless companies, almost 50 agreement signed globally covering almost three billion subscribers among them. So we do everything very closely with them. They are the customer owner. They are the ones who have our service plan through which you'll get billed. So they are the ones that we'll be doing these rollouts with and talking more about. But they've already started talking about us publicly. They're big supporters. Our retail community is big supporters of them as well and convey the interest in this connectivity solution, which is fantastic. It's a very positively reinforcing circle that shows the end user demand. But I'll hold off on any announcements on the go to market more broadly, but we'll be doing that with our customers. Ricky Mulvey: Let's talk about the relationships with Telecom companies. How have you been able to build those relationships with now AT&T, Vodafone, and several others? Scott Wisniewski: I mentioned that this challenge was considered cold fusion for a long time, and that was not just a technology issue. That was also a business issue. The satellite industry is from a communications perspective, tens of billions of dollars a year, relatively small, very niche, very competitive. But the wireless industry is a trillion dollar TAM. This is the five billion users. It's all of our service plans. This is the world's information in our pocket everywhere we go. So it's very powerful and those companies are behemoths. They've changed the world for us. From the very beginning, we had to convince them that finally Satellite could deliver on the promise of being useful to cellular. We've done that with native cellular technology, which I can talk more about. We've done that by putting a go to market strategy that is aligned with their objectives in a meaningful way around growth and retaining their customers. We've done this consistently. We've done this through equity investments, through board representation, through exclusivities with key customers, and through approaches with regulators that we were just talking about. So really, we are aligned with our customer partner investor MNOs, the mobile network operators, we cannot be more aligned and we love them and we've had great success with them, and you see that and how they talk about us publicly and how they've supported us along the journey. Ricky Mulvey: One thing that's interesting about these agreements is that one of your competitors and I would like to get to SpaceX's offering at some point in the conversation is SpaceX right now is just with T Mobile and your company is across different wireless cellular carriers. Was that difficult? Were the Telecoms wanting exclusivity with your technology ever? Scott Wisniewski: At the core and this is common in the Telecom world, you have those who own the customer and we know that in the US as the three big operators. But every country has those different three or four big operators. But behind them, there's been a move to pull infrastructure out. So as those industries have matured, you have tower companies that are separate. American Tower is an investor of us to the largest tower company in the world. You have data center companies that are separate. You have fiber companies that are separate. So this infrastructure has been carved away and sold off over time and it's for the benefits of traditional outsourcing. The benefits of outsourcing, whether it's infrastructure or services, is that you can scale your offering in a way that one operator expands to two, three, or many. So our solution, that's called carrier neutral strategy, that's always been our approach, and that's what we expect in the end status. That will be useful to all the operators in the markets we want to participate in. So what does that mean, of course? We've been on a seven year journey to build the business. Early on, being able to be partnered exclusively with folks like Vodafone, who is the largest operator outside of China is in 24 countries, is in many more partner markets, has more spectrum than any operator outside China. It's a very impressive company to be partnered with and we've been very privileged in that regard, and that was revalidated with our agreement that we just signed up with them, a 10-year agreement with Vodafone. So we've been able to build this out over time and with many operators. Then in the US, of course, we brought Verizon on about the middle of this year, in addition to AT&T, who's been a longtime partner. That was very important for the company. I think it gives us clearly much more breath to offer our service in the United States and benefit more Americans and bringing those two together was made possible because they jointly want to achieve this object. Ricky Mulvey: I had a question from our message boards, our premium message boards with user TMF built to last and this is something I am curious about, as well, which is that SpaceX is also looking to build a direct to smartphone business. Granted, I believe it's at a much lower Internet traffic capability than what your company is capable of. But how are you thinking about the competition right now in terms of low Earth orbit Internet? Scott Wisniewski: I'll answer that in a few ways. First, there's not a lot of constellations. There's not a lot of service providers in orbit or low Earth orbit and that's because there's this phrase called space is hard. So there's very few folks who have gotten to orbit and very few that have gotten to the orbit in a meaningful way. That's why these five large satellites we just put up and many more to come on top of it, is quite an impressive feat when you look at what other companies have been able to do. So at its core, we don't expect there to be a lot of companies who do this thing because it's really hard. The technology is hard, the funding is hard, the regulatory is hard. Building a global company is hard. These are really lofty goals and to do it five or six or seven times over is rarely done. So I think for us you got to apply that lens first and we're on a great run here. We have a lot of benefits, a lot of partners and we're getting built, but others will run into challenges for sure. Then you got to think about the user side. In every country, like I said, there's three to four operators. Each of those operators have different frequencies. They might compete with each other in ways that doesn't facilitate partnerships. So there's government angles. So we think that this is an industry being built from zero, that will support multiple healthy players over the 10, 15 year period and that we have a great go to market advantage based on inventing the industry, bring the technology to bear, being vertically integrated, having all these partners, having X funding, of course, we're publicly traded on NASDAQ today. So we're getting built as fast as we can. We think we're in a race against ourselves. Our partners and the end users, I want the service now. So every day that goes, we got to push harder. But in the end state, I expect it to be multiple operators with all these carrier neutral companies that I mentioned earlier and that's OK. But today, we have the only cellular broadband solution based on the technology that we're bringing to bear. Ricky Mulvey: Do you think later in the future, five, 10, 15 years from now is someone who pays an Internet bill and you usually just have one option in your area. Maybe you have two options for fiber Internet or broadband. Do you think space-based satellite Internet will ever compete with that traditional, just regular usage, not just the coverage gaps? Scott Wisniewski: Well, it's a fascinating question and it's totally the right question, but I don't think so and here's the reason why, physics is physics. So today, you have Wi-Fi to your home and you have a cellphone in your pocket and those are different. Both are giving you bits and both allow you to do very similar things today. But the economics from the provider are very different and that's because fiber is by far the best solution for home Wi-Fi. Of course, there are areas where fiber is not built out and that's where you see satellite today being successful. We have tens of thousands of towers in the United States that are hung with radios. This literally I don't know if users appreciate this. A Christmas tree with radios on top. And whenever you roll out a new frequency or a new G, are the operators, AT&T, Verizon, et cetera, you need to go and hang new equipment. So it's a very capital intensive, long scale effort. So once that's built, that's super valuable. However, now that we have the capability to essentially drop down a digital tower in up to four frequencies anywhere at any time within the MNOs footprint, that's an incredible technology to bring to bear and that allows them to curate their network over time and to work with ours closely. So we are very tightly connected with the operators. That is our strategy. That is one of our main benefits and we want to be very useful to them. Ultimately, they need to deploy fiber. They need to deploy towers, and they need to deploy us and putting all those together is the solution. Another thing is, we know that the demand for connectivity today is ubiquitous. It's overwhelming. People you do customer surveys. People turn that off after they turn off other things in their household list of costs it's almost as important as water. So what we find is that anything that gets that solution better or to 100% is very valuable. That's the niche that we fulfill for them, a very valuable, a very well-marketed niche that, again, makes that phone that works 95% of the time work all the time. That last 5% might be the difference between life and death. Ricky Mulvey: It's an important mission and you still have a lot of satellites you want to deploy getting to that. The 60 number for the BlueBird satellites. You've already put five into low Earth orbit. What's the path look like for that? Forgetting the rest of the satellites up there, what challenges is your company still facing in deploying those? Scott Wisniewski: We're vertically integrated, which means that we own and control 95% of the supply chain and the build of our satellites, which is very important because it allows us to move fast, means we're not subject to risks outside the company. We're not waiting to get a letter from a supplier that says, quarterly, sorry, we're delayed. So we own the build and the manufacturing. We've substantially completed the development of even our next generation satellites, which are bigger and better than the ones that are currently in orbit and we're building as fast as we can. We've talked about having the first 17 satellites and planning and production already in our Texas based factories and getting those up as soon as possible is critical to the success of the company. One bottle neck that we did observe that we were able to resolve a few months ago was long-term agreements with Blue Origin, with Israel, out of India, and with SpaceX to launch our satellites during 2025 and 2026 to complete that 45-60 satellite guidance. So we've organized our business around getting these first 45-60 satellites out. It gives us the ability to have 24/7 coverage in the latitudes that matter around the world, i.e., those that are like the US, Europe and Japan. So getting to that number with launch, manufacturing, with capital, with regulatory and with our partners, is critical and that's why you saw the commercial agreement with Vodafone earlier this week with AT&T earlier in the year and the investment of IB Verizon this past summer. So bringing all those pieces together to operate in our initial markets and do that with today's partners and more to come is absolutely critical to drive success and to align around that 45-60 satellite goal to deliver capacity to millions of Americans and tens of millions, maybe hundred of millions of others around the world. Ricky Mulvey: Thinking outside of your company, low Earth orbit in the space economy is something that fascinates me. I think about the manufacturing that can be done when you're outside of Earth. Earlier this year, we had Tom Vice, who runs a company called Serra Space and they're looking to do these space planes and these inflatable space habitats. He pointed out that you could even 3D print organs in space and that's something that solves the problem of gravity. You can't do it on Earth because the tissue layers collapse in on themselves and that creates a lot of problems. I'm saying this hopefully to get us thinking broadly about space and the opportunities there. But, Scott, when you think about the opportunity in low Earth orbit in the space economy, what storylines are you interested in? Which ones are you following outside of space-based Internet? Scott Wisniewski: The thing to keep in mind as I started my conversation with, there's relatively little development of space today it's been an area where governments played and then billionaires. It's only very recently that we're finding a broad commercial and investment interest in the opportunities. Because remember, as strong as much as we love our capitalist society, it's relatively short-term thinking. So being able to think more than a couple of years away is and so what you can read through with the fact that we have real investment interest in space today is that those opportunities are closer and more actionable and more real. So I would challenge folks who are looking to think broadly to think about basically what happens if we had discovered a new continent? Would you not invest in a new continent, a place where you can develop all the capabilities? It's essentially a land grab. So not only can you develop all the capabilities of that are normal. But then there's extra capabilities that you can do that are not normal, that are differentiated, like you just described. So I think we got to watch for how that develops in terms of being able to invest in it. Today, the market for space-based solutions is by and large, connectivity, at least commercially, it's almost all connectivity-based for the reasons that companies like us can bring to bear solutions on the Earth that are differentiated than what can be done on Earth. But going beyond, I think we really need to watch for being able to put people in orbit, keep them there for longer periods of time, do it at a cost that makes sense and start to understand what these capabilities are that are differentiated in orbit. Because you described one, there's many. Of course general R&D investment is one of the best things we can do for our country, for civilization, when you think about it from an economic perspective, the only real advancements come through technology. So any new technology that we can bring to bear as a country and as a civilization is extremely valuable and it's very exciting to do that, whether it's in orbit capabilities, it's going to the moon, going and beyond. Those are all super important, anyone who moves the ball forward, like [inaudible] Space mobile, I think, is very valuable because there's going to be winners and those will have incumbency in the decades to come and we believe that we've got a really good, useful plot. Mary Long: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and the Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against. So don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows Motley Fool editorial standards and are not approved by advertisers. The Motley Fool only picks products that it would personally recommend to friends like you. I'm Mary Long. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow.