Ennis: Fiscal Q1 Earnings Snapshot
The Midlothian, Texas-based company said it had net income of 38 cents per share.
The clothing and label maker posted revenue of $97.2 million in the period.
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Yahoo
41 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Women call the shots across the supply chain at tequila brand 1953
Listen and subscribe to The Big Idea on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. When Shivam Mallick Shah and Lindsey Davis Stover founded the tequila brand 1953, they wanted to make moves in an industry that was becoming increasingly popular among their own demographic while also opening doors for other women. As the brand proudly states on its website, 1953 is "Founded, Farmed, Distilled, and Led by Women." On Yahoo Finance's The Big Idea podcast, the two entrepreneurs shared how they managed to pull off such a feat in a historically male-dominated industry. (Watch the full episode above; listen-only below.) "I just kind of got down this rabbit hole of where the women in tequila are, unfortunately, really hard to find. So that kind of led us to this idea," Davis Stover, a Texas native, said on the podcast. "We were drinking tequila. Every woman we knew is drinking tequila," she continued. "So we wanted to create a company that was founded, farmed, distilled, and led by women at every single level. Even our name, 1953, is the year women earned the right to vote in Mexico. I think that is just the essence of our company and providing opportunities for women." This embedded content is not available in your region. "People didn't think it was necessary to have a female-led supply chain," Shah said. "They didn't think that it would make a difference in the quality of the product, and they didn't think that, frankly, we could do it. They had a lot of strong opinions on what we could do, and it was different than what we wanted to do." Shah and Davis Stover tackled their mission by completing their search in an "organic way," talking with people who worked at distilleries and farms in Mexico. Eventually, they found Carmen and Adriana, who ran the family-owned distillery that 1953 would eventually use. "Their family has owned this distillery for over a hundred years, and they have trained a female master distiller, Rocio Rodriguez, who signs every bottle," Shah explained. "She had this incredible story of having come to this distillery when she was pregnant. She was trained as a chemical engineer, but she was worried about losing her job. Carmen and Adriana's families decided to build a nursery so she could come to work and bring her whole self, which has, of course, changed her life, but it changed so many people's lives." Though their journey to creating a brand with a strong female focus had its roadblocks, the biggest hurdle was finding a woman-owned agave farm. Traditionally, agave farms in Mexico are passed down from father to son, but Carmen and Adriana helped the entrepreneurs find the farm they partner with today. "We could not find an agave farm owned by women," Shah said. "Carmen and Adriana helped us find a gentleman who only had four daughters. We met with them, and we talked about what we were trying to build. We asked him if he would consider passing his farm down to his daughters if we guaranteed purchase of agave from their farms for 1953." After a family meeting in which the four women discussed the proposition with their husbands and father, they ultimately agreed, deciding to take on the responsibility and risk to help complete 1953's women-led supply chain. "They had grown up on this farm, and they knew it like the back of their hand, but they never saw themselves as CEOs. They never saw themselves as the people in charge of running the farm," Shah explained. "What made them think differently was the high school down the street and all the girls who were in that high school, just like they used to be, and wanting to let those girls know that there was nothing they couldn't do. ... It was a motivation we all shared, and we knew we had an alignment of our values, which told us we were in the right place. And that really completed our supply chain." Every Thursday, Elizabeth Gore discusses real-life stories and smart strategies for launching a small business on The Big Idea podcast. You can find more episodes on our video hub or watch on your preferred streaming service. Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
It's Trump's economy now
Presented by With help from Eli Okun, Bethany Irvine and Ali Bianco Good Sunday morning. It's Zack Stanton. Get in touch. THE CONVERSATION: Within days of her election in November, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), faced backlash from some House Republicans for being transgender. In the face of those attacks, McBride has sought ways to forge ties across the aisle, animated partly by her hope of bringing 'a sense of kindness and grace' to Congress despite the 'reality TV show nature' of today's politics, she tells Playbook's Dasha Burns on today's episode of 'The Conversation.' Listen in: The two also discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, how the Democratic Party can rebuild its coalition without 'reinforcing right-wing framing' over 'culture war' issues and why her pursuit of bipartisan legislation is in part a direct response to President Donald Trump. Watch the full episode … Subscribe to 'The Conversation' on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify DRIVING THE DAY WELCOME TO THE VIBE SHIFT: For months, Trump has boasted that under his leadership, America is the 'hottest' country in the world. (He repeated that claim overnight in a social media post at 1:49 a.m.) Now, he's at risk of being burned by those expectations. On Wednesday, new GDP numbers showed that in the first half of the year, the economy grew at an annual rate of less than 1.3 percent. On Thursday, new inflation numbers showed that the personal consumption expenditures price index jumped by 2.6 percent in the year ending in June — an acceleration of the inflation rate from April. On Friday, the new jobs report showed that net hiring has 'plummeted over the past three months with job gains of just 73,000 in July, 14,000 in June and 19,000 in May,' in the words of the AP. And behind those topline numbers was a striking datapoint, the WSJ's Te-Ping Chen and Harriet Torry note: 'The number of people unemployed for at least 27 weeks topped 1.8 million, the highest level since 2017, not counting the pandemic's unemployment surge.' This morning, it's clear that a new consensus is emerging: For all the talk of a new 'Golden Age,' there are abundant signs that the economy, while at times glittering, may not be gold. Simply put: 'Job gains are dwindling. Inflation is ticking upward. Growth has slowed compared with last year,' AP's Josh Boak and Christopher Rugaber write. '[T]his is not the boom the Republican president promised, and his ability to blame his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, for any economic challenges has faded as the world economy hangs on his every word and social media post.' Indeed, nearly 200 days into his second term, even members of Trump's administration are signaling that the window during which Biden could be blamed has now passed. The 'Trump economy has arrived,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Wednesday. 'Biden's first quarter is behind us, and growth is already accelerating.' Trump has made himself central to the economy. 'After campaigning on a pledge to free business from worrying about Washington's dictates, Trump has made public policy — and his own norm-busting behavior — the primary variables affecting the $30 trillion U.S. economy, economists said,' WaPo's David Lynch and Abha Bhattarai report. Washington, they write, is now 'the focus of business and investment decision-making.' That's unlikely to change anytime soon. Among the reasons why, two loom large: the coming economic impact of Trump's tariffs, and new concerns about the reliability of government economic statistics going forward. ON THE TARIFFS: 'Companies are starting to shift more tariff-related costs onto consumers,' NYT's Sydney Ember reports in an A1 story this morning. 'Many businesses chose to absorb the additional tax during the early days of President Trump's trade war. But evidence is emerging that they are running out of options to keep prices stable in the face of deteriorating profit margins, suggesting that the tariffs could have a more pronounced effect on prices in the months ahead.' Yes, the inflationary effects of Trump's tariffs have been muted thus far. But economists 'cite several reasons for that limited impact,' Ember writes. 'Companies across the country raced to stockpile goods before any tariffs kicked in, giving them a significant cushion before they had to import goods subject to higher levies. Many businesses, big and small, were reluctant to pass along higher costs to their inflation-weary customers without more clarity on where the tariffs would settle.' A new economic divide: Now that the policy is settling into place, a 'divide is widening in the US economy as the biggest banks and technology groups shrug off Donald Trump's tariffs to post huge earnings gains while consumer-facing companies struggle with rising costs,' FT's George Steer writes this morning. Stat of the day: In total, 52 percent of the S&P 500 companies that have posted Q2 results reported declining profit margins, FT reports, citing Société Générale, a financial services company based in France. Companies reported margin pressure even as their sales rose, which suggests 'that their costs are going up but that companies aren't yet passing this on' to consumers, Andrew Lapthorne, the firm's head of quantitative research, told the FT. ON THE DATA: On Friday, Trump ordered his team to fire Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after the jobs report showed weaker numbers than expected for July and downgraded the May and June figures. That's igniting 'worries that Trump's volatile temperament could cause additional economic harm by undermining market confidence in the government data that investors, business executives and policymakers require to make decisions,' WaPo's Lynch and Bhattarai write. 'If policymakers and the public can't trust the data — or suspect the data are being manipulated — confidence collapses and reasonable economic decision-making becomes impossible,' Heidi Shierholz, the president of the center-left Economic Policy Institute and former chief economist of the Labor Department, told the Post. 'It's like trying to drive a car blindfolded.' SUNDAY BEST … — U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on the new tariffs and future trade deals, on CBS' 'Face the Nation': 'These tariff rates are pretty much set. I expect I do have my phone blowing up. There are trade ministers who want to talk more and see how they can work in a different way with the United States, but I think that we have, we're seeing truly the contours of the president's tariff plan right now with these rates.' — National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett on the jobs numbers on 'Fox News Sunday': 'When the data are unreliable, when they keep being revised all over the place, then there are going to be people that wonder if there's a partisan pattern in the data. … And so, I think what we need is a fresh set of eyes at the [Bureau of Labor Statistics], somebody who can clean this thing up.' — Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) on the firing of the head of the BLS, on NBC's 'Meet the Press': 'That's what confirmation hearings are supposed to be about, is it going to be somebody that will maintain the independence of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, like so many other departments and agencies that need to have the independence from political pressure of the White House to do their job reliably? Or will this be another yes person for the president that's going to be more interested in propaganda than statistics, more interested in propaganda than the facts?' — Doctors Without Borders USA CEO Avril Benoît on the starvation in Gaza on ABC's 'This Week': 'We need to flood the zone with as much food as possible. The problem with the [Gaza Humanitarian Foundation] is, of course, it's unsafe. It's an inefficient way to deliver aid. People have to cross very unsafe zones to reach those areas that are controlled by the IDF and military contractors from the U.S., and then there are insufficient quantities.' TOP-EDS: A roundup of the week's must-read opinion pieces. 9 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR 1. RECESS BEGINS: Senators left Washington yesterday to begin their long-awaited August recess. Republicans left without locking in a deal to confirm dozens of nominations that Trump has put forward, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune has vowed to return in the fall to clear the deck after Trump privately told Republicans to go home and cut negotiations with Democrats, POLITICO's Jordain Carney reports. The U-turn: Thune and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had a path forward on the floor (which hadn't been formalized) that would have exchanged a tranche of confirmations for the release of withheld NIH and foreign aid funding, Jordain writes. That came after Republicans seemed adamant on Saturday about getting the nominations resolved this weekend, whether by cutting a deal, changing the confirmation rules or by adjourning to allow recess appointments. The Trump of it all: 'The president is fed up,' Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said. Trump manned the phones yesterday for conversations with some key GOP senators, and late last night he blasted Schumer for 'political extortion' on Truth Social and urged all Republicans to head out. Thune teed up seven final nominees for confirmation votes last night before moving on to recess. Among the newly confirmed: Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host, now formally the U.S. attorney for D.C. following a 50-45 vote. What Thune is thinking: He's already preparing for the possibility of speeding up the process with a rules change come September. 'I think they're desperately in need of change,' Thune said, per AP's Mary Clare Jalonick and Joey Cappelletti. 'I think that the last six months have demonstrated that this process, nominations is broken. And so I expect there will be some good robust conversations about that.' What Schumer is thinking: He defended the Democrats' response, saying 'historically bad nominees deserve historic levels of scrutiny.' Still in limbo: The nominations of Mike Waltz as UN ambassador and Kimberly Guilfoyle for U.S. ambassador to Greece, CBS' Cristina Corujo notes. It's still unclear if the Senate will take up nominations as soon as they come back on Sept. 2, or if they'll wait until after the shutdown deadline. 2. PROMISES BROKEN?: 'White House has no plan to mandate IVF care, despite campaign pledge,' by WaPo's Riley Beggin and Jeff Stein: 'The White House does not plan to require health insurers to provide coverage for in vitro fertilization services, two people with knowledge of internal discussions said … In addition, White House officials are backing away from proposals discussed internally to mandate IVF coverage for the roughly 50 million people on the Obamacare exchanges … It is unclear whether the administration plans to ask lawmakers to take up a bill, but the two people said that forcing insurance companies to cover IVF is not currently on the table.' 3. TRADING PLACES: India will continue purchasing Russian oil even as Trump threatens penalties, Reuters' Shivam Patel and Chandni Shah report. Trump said Friday that he was told India would stop the trade with Russia. But sources in India's government said no policy changes have been made. It's the latest instance of an increasingly sour relationship between the U.S. and India, one tied not just to trade, but also Trump's claimed credit over the end of India's brief conflict with Pakistan, WSJ's Alex Ward and colleagues write. On the tariffs: As the final deals in Trump's trade war emerge, Myanmar is still optimistic it can come to an agreement with the U.S. that would decrease its new 40 percent tariff levels, per Bloomberg's Khine Lin Kyaw. But in Switzerland, investors are bracing themselves for the market's reopening tomorrow after Trump's 39 percent tariff announcement came during Swiss National Day, Bloomberg's Gary Parkinson and colleagues report. Elsewhere on the economy: Though Washington has increasingly come down on electric vehicles, they're not going anywhere, writes NYT's Jack Ewing, as the cars become cheaper and tariff resilient. … Fed officials say the U.S. labor market is still solid despite the July jobs report, WSJ's Nick Timiraos scooped. … As Fed Governor Adriana Kugler announced her resignation on Friday, Trump now has an opportunity to install someone at the Fed to push for interest rate cuts, Bloomberg's Christopher Condon and Amara Omeokwe report. 4. THE CRISIS IN GAZA: Special envoy Steve Witkoff told the families of Israeli hostages yesterday that the U.S. has a plan to bring home all of the remaining hostages in a deal with Hamas that could soon end the war, WaPo's Gerry Shih reports from Jerusalem. Trump 'now believes that everybody should come home at once, no piecemeal deals. That doesn't work and we've tried everything,' Witkoff said. He added that Hamas was ready to disarm itself, which the group denied. Not a moment too soon: The starvation and struggle over aid continues to ravage the Gaza strip. Hundreds of thousands of people are overrunning aid convoys out of desperation for access to food, WaPo reports. Though the Trump administration claims it has given over $60 million in aid to Gaza, the State Department has only pledged half that amount and only a fraction has been issued in Gaza so far, per WaPo's Karen DeYoung. More on the starvation in Gaza from the NYT Back in Washington: Pro-Israel Democrats are increasingly publicly breaking with PM Benjamin Netanyahu and circulating a letter in the House to potentially recognize a Palestinian state, CNN's Isaac Dovere reports. Related read: 'Mike Huckabee, Israel's Passionate Defender as Gaza War Drives Allies Away,' by NYT's Elisabeth Bumiller 5. IMMIGRATION FILES: DOJ is walking back Stephen Miller's touted goal of 3,000 ICE arrests per day, as the Trump administration told federal judges last week that this quota doesn't exist, POLITICO's Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein write. That figure has emerged in multiple lawsuits over the administration's deportation drive, and its denial is the 'latest example of a gulf between what White House advisers say in public and what the Justice Department says in court.' It also comes as an appeals court on Friday upheld the block on the seemingly indiscriminate immigration raids in Los Angeles. Dade County, all day: Billionaire Michael Fernández is behind the new ads in Miami blasting its representatives in Congress over the mass deportations of immigrants, telling NYT's Patricia Mazzei that he hopes to 'wake up the conscience' of Miami's Cuban GOP voters. … But Latino representatives in Congress, including Miami's own Cuban Republicans, are already concerned Trump's deportations could backfire with Latino voters, WaPo's Marianna Sotomayor writes. Deep in the heart: 'Trump's Border Wall Is Back—and So Is His Fight With Texas Landowners,' by WSJ's Elizabeth Findell 6. FROM THE WILDERNESS: New campaign finance filings reveal some Democrats are already revving themselves up for 2028, with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg raising $1.6 million with his PAC and some Democratic governors raising hundreds of thousands as well, POLITICO's Jessica Piper and Elena Schneider report. … Kamala Harris told Stephen Colbert she doesn't 'want to go back in the system' right now, and some Democrats are hoping she doesn't in 2028 either, POLITICO's Dustin Gardiner and colleagues write. … Democrats are increasingly turning to veterans across the country, NYT's Shane Goldmacher reports, as the party tries to shift away from its currently unpopular branding. Survey says: Democratic voters see their party as 'weak' or 'ineffective,' with one-third describing the party negatively in a new AP-NORC poll, per AP's Steve Peoples and colleagues. 7. A HOMECOMING FOR WILES: White House chief of staff Susie Wiles returned to her home state of Florida on Saturday night to receive the 'Statesman Award' from the Republican Party of Florida, Kimberly Leonard writes in to Playbook. Speaking before the Red Florida Dinner at the Rosen Shingle Creek in Orlando, Wiles called her job 'a dream beyond anything I could ever have imagined,' adding: 'The golden age of America is here, because Donald Trump is in the White House.' The evening was a testament to how Wiles helped transform Florida from a purple to a red state in just a few election cycles — first with Rick Scott's 2010 campaign for governor, then for Gov. Ron DeSantis' first gubernatorial campaign in 2018. She also led Trump's Florida operation in 2016 and 2020 and ultimately led his 2024 comeback to the White House. Now, many Floridians she has worked with over the years are in the administration. 'Honestly, Floridians overpopulate the West Wing in a really big way,' Wiles said to applause. Wiles' band of loyalists heaped praise on her throughout the evening. Top Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio called the award 'long overdue.' Chris LaCivita praised Wiles as 'inarguably' the best in the field. Deputy chief of staff James Blair said Wiles 'deserves all the credit she gets and then some.' VP JD Vance delivered a surprise video greeting, crediting Wiles with keeping the White House 'on track and on schedule' while also being a 'ruthless political operator.' And Trump capped off the love fest in his own video message, saying he was unsure whether to call her a 'statesman' or 'stateswoman,' but concluding: 'You are the person of the year in my book.' 8. DEMOCRACY WATCH: DOJ is expanding its efforts to get access to voter data and election information, sending letters and emails and phone calls to get copies of voter registration lists in at least 15 states, AP's Ali Swenson and Gary Fields report. That includes 'all records' from the 2024 election and any records retained from 2020, and it's raising red flags with some state officials. In one instance in Colorado, consultant Jeff Small asked Republican officials if they would give a third party access to election information, and that he was acting on a request from Stephen Miller, per CNN's Fredreka Schouten. 9. RETRIBUTION CORNER: 'Agency Scrutinizes Jack Smith After Republican Complaint,' by NYT's Devlin Barrett: 'An agency that scrutinizes the conduct of federal employees has opened an investigation into Jack Smith, the former special counsel who investigated Donald J. Trump before he returned to office … The Office of Special Counsel confirmed on Saturday that it had opened an investigation into Mr. Smith for a possible violation of the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits federal workers from using their government jobs to engage in political activity. … Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, had asked the agency to investigate.' TALK OF THE TOWN PLAYBOOK METRO SECTION — 'Smithsonian to restore Trump to impeachment exhibit 'in the coming weeks,'' by WaPo's Jonathan Fischer and Samantha Chery: 'The Smithsonian said on Saturday that it would restore information about President Donald Trump's two impeachments to an exhibit in the National Museum of American History within weeks.' SOUNDS LIKE VEEP — After Alan Dershowitz got into it with a farmer's market vendor on Martha's Vineyard who refused to sell him a pierogi, Crooked Media's Matt Berg published the corresponding police report. The highlight: 'Dershowitz stated he was going to spread the word to others at the market to not buy from the pierogi booth,' the report reads. At a nearby lemonade stand, a cop warned him not to. It concludes: 'Shortly after, the lawyer departed, pierogiless.' FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — K STREET FILES: AECOM, the giant infrastructure firm the White House picked to lead the engineering team for the construction of the $200 million White House ballroom being built with private money, is registered with Ballard Partners, the powerhouse lobbying firm with ties to chief of staff Susie Wiles, POLITICO's Daniel Lippman writes in. AECOM has paid Ballard Partners $120,000 to lobby the White House and Congress this year, according to lobbying records. The firm run by Brian Ballard, a top Trump fundraiser, registered for AECOM a week after the election. The initial listing said it was lobbying Congress and the State Department, but in the second quarter it added the White House. Wiles told Playbook in an email that she has never represented AECOM, adding she didn't 'know how they were selected, but I was never lobbied about any of the contractors or involved in any way.' Ballard declined to comment. Spokespeople for AECOM didn't respond to a request for comment. AECOM has received numerous federal contracts since the start of the Trump administration, including an Air Force contract worth up to $1.5 billion and at least two major contracts from the Army Corps of Engineers. A White House official pointed Playbook to data showing AECOM has also been a major contractor for the government during Democratic administrations and that two-thirds of AECOM's contributions in the 2024 cycle went to Democrats. Wiles worked for Ballard from 2011 to 2019, helping open up its D.C. office. Stories about the firm often include the fact that he used to employ Wiles. AG Pam Bondi also is an alum of the firm. Ballard Partners has risen to the top of the K Street ranks in the months since Trump's reelection. Speaking of the ballroom: 'Experts Raise Concerns Over Trump's White House Ballroom Renovation Plans,' by NYT's Ashley Ahn HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) … Reps. Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) and Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pa.) … Bernadette Meehan (5-0) … KFF Health News' Rachana Pradhan … Matthew Foldi … ABC's Ben Siegel and John Parkinson … Scott Parkinson … Claire Olszewski of the Obama Foundation … Jeff Dressler of SoftBank … Tom Freedman … Matt Compton … former Sen. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) … Jordan Burke … Erikka Knuti … Katherine Robertson of Alabama AG Steve Marshall's office … Graham MacGillivray … Jessica Ennis Kitelyn … Brian Morgenstern … City Journal's Brian Anderson … Dow Jones' Clarissa Matthews … Joe Ramallo of Sen. Bill Cassidy's (R-La.) office … Jay Caruso … Rachael Shackelford Dussuau … Reuters' Brad Brooks … Ken Nahigian … DNC's Emma Bailey … James Wegmann of Stand Together … Jacob Weisberg of Pushkin Industries … Andrew Craft … POLITICO's Jasmine Turner and Bemi Ukuedojor … Dmitri Mehlhorn … Sydney Hilbush of Rep. John Garamendi's (D-Calif.) office Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Send Playbookers tips to playbook@ or text us on Signal here. Playbook couldn't happen without our editor Zack Stanton, deputy Garrett Ross and Playbook Podcast producer Callan Tansill-Suddath.
Geek Wire
3 hours ago
- Geek Wire
Crypto billionaire takes his $28M space trip with five others on Blue Origin's rocket ship
Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket ship rises from its West Texas launch pad. (Blue Origin via YouTube) Controversial crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun finally got his suborbital ride into space today from Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin space venture, four years after he put in the winning $28 million bid for a seat. Five other spacefliers were alongside with Sun when Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket ship rose from its launch pad at the company's Launch Site One in West Texas at 7:43 a.m. CT (5:43 a.m. PT) for a 10-minute trip. When Sun emerged from the crew capsule, he made a thumbs-up gesture, then stepped down to kiss the ground. 'I wished to go into space since I was a child, and after almost 30 years, it's come true,' Sun said on Blue Origin's webcast. 'For this mission I waited four years, but we finally delivered it. I really appreciate Mr. Bezos and his team to make it possible. … This is my first commitment and step to space, and we will have more.' Sun is the founder of a blockchain venture called Tron and an adviser to HTX, one of the world's largest crypto exchanges. When the 35-year-old Chinese native won Blue Origin's space auction in 2021, it was meant to guarantee him a spot on New Shepard's first crewed flight that summer. Instead, Sun put his reservation on hold, reportedly due to scheduling conflicts. While Sun was waiting for his flight, legal complications arose: In 2023, he became the subject of a federal investigation over alleged market manipulation and unregistered sales of crypto asset securities. But that case was put on hold in February, and a couple of months later, Sun earned a place of prominence at a crypto dinner with President Donald Trump by purchasing the biggest share of the $TRUMP meme coin. Last month, Tron Inc. became a publicly listed company on Nasdaq. Crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun flashes thumbs-up signs as he emerges from Blue Origin's New Shepard crew capsule. (Blue Origin via YouTube) Today's mission, known as NS-34, marked the 34th flight and 14th crewed flight for Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital space program. This flight followed the standard profile for crewed missions: The autonomously controlled, reusable rocket ship's hydrogen-fueled booster sent the crew capsule to an altitude of 65.7 miles (105.7 kilometers), just above the 100-kilometer Karman Line that marks the internationally accepted boundary of outer space. At that height, the NS-34 crew members experienced a few minutes of zero gravity and got an astronaut's-eye view of Earth beneath the black sky of space. Then, at the end of the ride, they made a parachute-assisted touchdown not far from their launch pad. Sun's five crewmates for NS-34 reflected varied backgrounds. Here's the list: Arvinder (Arvi) Singh Bahal is a real-estate investor and adventurer who was born in Agra, India, and is now a naturalized U.S. citizen. is a real-estate investor and adventurer who was born in Agra, India, and is now a naturalized U.S. citizen. Gökhan Erdem is a Turkish business executive and a board member of Erdem Holding, a diverse group of companies operating in the energy, telecommunications, construction and manufacturing sectors. is a Turkish business executive and a board member of Erdem Holding, a diverse group of companies operating in the energy, telecommunications, construction and manufacturing sectors. Deborah Martorell is a Puerto Rican meteorologist and journalist. Her reporting on environmental and space topics has garnered eight Emmy Awards and two Awards of Excellence in Science Reporting from the American Meteorological Society. is a Puerto Rican meteorologist and journalist. Her reporting on environmental and space topics has garnered eight Emmy Awards and two Awards of Excellence in Science Reporting from the American Meteorological Society. Lionel Pitchford is an Englishman who has spent the last four decades in Spain working as a teacher, translator and tour guide. He is the founder of a nonprofit in Nepal dedicated to serving disadvantaged children and girls, and has run an orphanage in Katmandu for more than 30 years. is an Englishman who has spent the last four decades in Spain working as a teacher, translator and tour guide. He is the founder of a nonprofit in Nepal dedicated to serving disadvantaged children and girls, and has run an orphanage in Katmandu for more than 30 years. James (J.D.) Russell is the founder of Alpha Funds, a technology-focused venture capital company; and Alpha Aerospace, an aerospace consulting and solutions company. He first flew to space on Blue Origin's NS-28 mission last November. 'It was an honor to see so many nations represented on our flight today,' Phil Joyce, Blue Origin's senior vice president for the New Shepard, said in an online recap of today's mission. 'The view of our fragile planet from space has a unifying effect on all who witness it, and I am always eager to see how our astronauts use this experience for the benefit of Earth.' Blue Origin has now sent 75 people on suborbital space trips, including Russell and four other people who have taken multiple trips. The company doesn't typically reveal how much its customers are paying for their flights. Sun's case is the rare exception, due to the fact that the 2021 auction was conducted publicly. Sun's $28 million fare went to Blue Origin's nonprofit educational foundation, the Club for the Future. Most of that money was distributed in the form of million-dollar grants to 19 space-focused nonprofits. In addition to the crew, today's flight carried more than 1,500 digital postcards and 16,000 physical postcards for the Club for the Future's 'Postcards in Space' program, which collects messages from students around the world. Sun set up his own 'To the Sun' program to collect messages — and carried more than 1,000 of those messages into space on a thumb drive. Sun's space ride isn't his only notable purchase: Last December, he made headlines when he spent $6.2 million to purchase a work of conceptual art featuring a banana that was duct-taped to a wall — and then ate the banana. And for what it's worth, Sun isn't the only controversial crypto figure to take a trip on New Shepard. In February, Blue Origin withheld the identity of one of its spacefliers on the NS-30 mission. An analysis of photos and references to the flier in public records, including the Federal Aviation Administration's list of spaceflight participants, suggested that the mystery man was an Australian crypto entrepreneur named Russell Wilson (not to be confused with the former Seahawks quarterback). In response to emailed inquiries, a Blue Origin representative told GeekWire that the company works with a third party to accept crypto payments for spaceflights.
