Latest news with #Rosenfield
6 days ago
- Health
E-scooter injuries on the rise across Canada, data shows
Hospitalizations related to injuries from scooters and e-scooters have risen, according to new Canadian data, as emergency physicians warn the two-wheeled vehicles aren't toys. The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) said Thursday that nearly 1,000 people were hospitalized (new window) for scooter-related injuries during the 12-month period starting April 1, 2023. That's up from 810 during the same period of 2022-23. Half of the injuries — 498 — were related to motorized e-scooters, an increase of 32 per cent over the 375 hospitalizations recorded in 2022-23. Some unintentional injuries are really predictable and preventable, particularly in relation to e-scooter injuries, said Tanya Khan, CIHI's manager of hospital data advancement and engagement in Montreal. Emergency physicians say the extent of injuries can be severe: brain, facial and dental trauma, fractures needing multiple surgeries, or traumatic brain injuries (new window) that require intensive care. Some injuries happen when the rider is hit by a car, but physicians are also treating people (new window) who have been hit by a rider. Back in 2020, Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) saw a single e-scooter injury. By 2024, that number had jumped to 46. Fast speeds on unstable devices Daniel Rosenfield, a pediatric emergency physician at SickKids, said the hospital saw 16 scooter-related injuries this May alone, compared with three or fewer during the same month in previous years. Rosenfield said injuries can range from bumps and fractures to life-changing head injuries and internal bleeding that need a whole trauma team or intensive care. This can be anything from just one or two surgeries to full recovery, to lifelong injuries needing rehabilitation hospitals and complete kind of neurologic devastation, Rosenfield said. Given what he has seen, Rosenfield implores parents not to buy e-scooters for children. They are not toys. WATCH | E-scooter rider versus Canada goose: People need physical maturity to operate e-scooters, Rosenfield said. From an emotional and cognitive perspective — where you just have the ability to understand where your body is in space, how you can make turns, what's far ahead and what's not — [it is] similar to driving a car. E-scooters can go from zero to 40 km/h in seconds, and many parents aren't aware of that, he said. At SickKids, almost 90 per cent of e-scooter injuries are among teenage boys. Most of them weren't wearing helmets. The hospital's injury rates also showed an increase among children aged four to six riding with a parent or older sibling. Enlarge image (new window) Source: Canadian Institute for Health Information Photo: CBC If you have speed plus head injury, a helmet will help mitigate those injuries every time, he said. Pamela Fuselli, president and CEO of Parachute, an injury prevention charity, said micro-mobility devices like e-scooters have small wheels and are unstable when being ridden. Inexperience comes into play, Fuselli said. Take some time to learn how to use these devices. She says all users should wear helmets, obey the rules of the road, including speed and alcohol limits, and respect other road users. Noting that provincial and municipal laws and regulations on using e-scooters vary across Canada, Fuselli said stepping up enforcement is important to prevent injuries. Amina Zafar (new window) · CBC News · Journalist Amina Zafar covers medical sciences and health care for CBC. She contributes to CBC Health's Second Opinion, which won silver for best editorial newsletter at the 2024 Digital Publishing Awards. She holds an undergraduate degree in environmental science and a master's in journalism. With files from CBC's Jennifer La Grassa
Global News
6 days ago
- Health
- Global News
E-scooter injuries are on the rise among both kids and adults, data and doctors say
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says e-scooter injuries are on the rise across the country. It released data Thursday saying that hospitalizations involving e-scooters for kids between five and 17 years old increased by 61 per cent from 2022-23 to 2023-24. The agency said hospitalizations for men between 18 and 64 went up by 22 per cent in that time period and went up by 60 per cent for women. The data shows the majority of e-scooter hospitalizations happened in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia. Dr. Daniel Rosenfield, a pediatric emergency physician at SickKids Hospital in Toronto, said the number of kids and teens arriving in the emergency department with e-scooter injuries has been increasing over the last five years and some have been 'catastrophic,' including one 13-year-old boy's death in 2023. Story continues below advertisement 'We see anything from minor scrapes and cuts and little lacerations that need a couple of stitches to … traumatic brain injury, internal bleeding in the chest and abdomen, open fractures that need to go to the operating room to be fixed,' he said. Get breaking National news For news impacting Canada and around the world, sign up for breaking news alerts delivered directly to you when they happen. Sign up for breaking National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Some children between four and six years old have been hurt while riding with their parents on an e-scooter, Rosenfield said, but injuries among teens riding on their own is more common. Among cases where the information is available, 80 per cent of the riders who end up in the ER aren't wearing helmets, he said. Rosenfield said he thinks the rise in injuries correlates to an increase in the popularity and affordability of e-scooters in recent years — together with a lack of understanding about how dangerous they can be. 'These scooters, much like everything electrified these days, have come down in price and have increased in power,' he said. 'Their acceleration and torque is tremendous. And most parents, when they're buying these things for their kids, are completely unaware of that.' Pamela Fuselli, president and CEO of Parachute Canada — a charity focused on injury prevention — said the laws around e-scooters vary between provinces and even municipalities. In Ontario, riders must be at least 16 years old. But in Toronto, e-scooters are not allowed on public roads or paths. And just east of the city in Oshawa, they're permitted under a pilot program. Story continues below advertisement But people are clearly using them even where they're not allowed, Fuselli said. 'Even while a city may have a bylaw about this, they can regulate what's operated in public spaces, but then that has to be enforced. They can't really regulate what's sold,' she said. Fuselli said kids under 16 should not be riding e-scooters — and parents shouldn't be buying them for children younger than that. 'They look like toys, but they really are motor vehicles,' she said. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 17, 2025. Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
Business of Fashion
07-06-2025
- Business
- Business of Fashion
How to Revive a Sleeping Beauty Watch Brand
The dormant Danish watch company Urban Jürgensen was 'resurrected' in Los Angeles on Thursday following a $25 million revamp that its US backers hope will land it a seat at luxury watchmaking's top table inside five years. Acquired by a group of investors led by the American Rosenfield family in 2021 for an undisclosed sum, Urban Jürgensen was originally founded in Copenhagen in 1773 and is revered by watch connoisseurs and collectors. But outside that bubble, the name is largely unknown. According to its co-chief executive Alex Rosenfield, the bubble needs to burst. 'We think that what we're making are watches that people who love and care about watches will love and care about, but the world of people who can enjoy what we're doing is much larger than that,' Rosenfield told the Business of Fashion. 'Too often, watch companies make you feel like if you don't understand the escapement, we don't want to talk to you. Our goal is absolutely the opposite. It has to be beyond the obsessives.' Rosenfield is new to the watch industry. Qualified as a lawyer, he held a number of brand strategy roles in media and fashion before joining Guggenheim Partners, the US investment and financial services firm, which says it has more than $345 billion of assets under management. Rosenfield's father Andy is the firm's president and also an avid watch collector, buying his first Urban Jürgensen watch in the 1990s. Rosenfield Sr, who will continue to advise the company, and his philanthropist wife Betty hosted the relaunch at their $33 million Brentwood mansion. Rosenfield, who is based in Los Angeles, said his family had never intended to buy a watch company but stepped in to acquire Urban Jürgensen after hearing it had fallen on hard times, so they could return it to 'people who will love it and push it forward.' Urban Jürgensen's latest campaign. (Casey Zhang) The Rosenfields, who are reported to own 85 percent of the company, have assembled an impressive cast list. The company's other co-chief executive is Kari Voutilainen, the Finnish watchmaker considered one of the finest talents of his generation. Voutilainen has a minority stake in Urban Jürgensen, as well as his own independent watch company, which makes around 60 pieces a year. Urban Jürgensen's brand identity was developed by Winkreative in London and Chandelier Creative in New York under Rosenfield's direction, with a launch campaign called Time Well Spent shot by Ellen von Unwerth, the award-winning fashion photographer and filmmaker. The company is set to follow the high-value, low-volume model set by many of today's most successful independent watch brands. According to Rosenfield, in its first year, Urban Jürgensen will produce around 70 watches. Three models were introduced at Thursday's launch, with prices ranging from around $115,000 for the UJ-2 to $410,000 for the UJ-1, which will be limited to 75 pieces. Each has a new mechanical movement designed in-house by Voutilainen and hand-finished and assembled at the company's Swiss facility in the city of Biel/Bienne, where watchmaking giant Omega is based. Currently, it employs 20 people, around half of them watchmakers. 'The idea is to bring the glory of the Urban Jürgensen of the 19th century back,' Voutilainen said, referring to a period when the company made watches for the Danish royal court. 'This is just the starting block. Our aim is to make Urban Jürgensen a new reference point in fine watchmaking.' The revival of Urban Jürgensen comes in a busy season of watch brand rebirths. The private equity-backed Swiss company Breitling has in recent years acquired Universal Genève and Gallet, two dormant brands now slated for a comeback next year. Last year, Silvercity Brands, a subsidiary of the Indian conglomerate KDDL, revived the 18th century company Favre-Leuba, while the US founding partner of the mergers and acquisitions firm Duffy & Sweeney, Michael Sweeney, reintroduced the American watch brand Benrus in April. Rosenfield said he believed the recent glut of acquisitions and relaunches of forgotten dial names was sign that luxury buyers want a human connection to their purchases. 'We're so estranged from work with our hands and hand-making and things that are human, and now I think we need this [these brands] more than we ever did,' he said. Initially, Urban Jürgensen watches will be sold direct to consumer. No pre-orders had been taken, according to Rosenfield, who said that in time his strategy allowed for a few 'pop-ups and offices that serve as showrooms' that would be 'places to entertain as much as to sell', a model that has proved successful for Audemars Piguet, which has more than doubled its revenues over the past decade through its network of laid-back AP House concepts. Voutilainen said the ambition was to grow to between 1,000 and 1,200 watches a year in five years, putting it in territory currently dominated by a small number of high-end independents such as F. P. Journe, which was founded in 1999 and is now thought to turn over more than $100 million a year, according to Morgan Stanley estimates. With backing from the Rosenfields and Voutilainen overseeing product development, experts said Urban Jürgensen would shake up the luxury watch industry, currently dominated by Swiss companies. 'This is the best revival of a watch company since A. Lange & Söhne in 1994,' said Wei Koh, founder of the watch media brand Revolution, referring to the German brand now owned by the Richemont Group. 'I hope the Swiss companies are looking over the Atlantic and asking themselves what just happened,' said Kristian Haagen, the Danish founder of Timegeeks and author of multiple books on watchmaking. 'There's something really good and refreshing about it, something extremely un-Swiss. The Rosenfields are extremely wealthy, but they also know their watches.' Co-founders Andy & Alex Rosenfield. (Madison McGaw/ Recent revivals of historic dial names suggest the omens are good. In 2015, the billionaire Scheufele family that owns Chopard introduced Ferdinand Berthoud, named after the 18th century watchmaker. The company has won a number of prestigious industry awards with its small-scale watches, including the Aiguille d'Or at the Grand Prix d'Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) in 2016, widely viewed as the highest honour in fine watchmaking. It was followed the same year by Czapek & Cie, a name from the 19th century. It too has won a GPHG award and grown a client base with its short-batch collections of hand-finished mechanical watches. The luxury watch industry's current travails appeared not to concern Urban Jürgensen's new owners. While many watch businesses have reported declining sales and volumes over the past 18 months, the pain has been at the lower end of the market. 'At the higher price point, it's not that big a problem,' said Voutilainen. Rosenfield acknowledged that the industry was in better health than it is now when his family acquired the brand in 2021. 'The [relaunch] timing was not planned for this moment,' he said. 'But our view was, when the watches are ready, we'll introduce them. And that is now. There will always be a market for things that are beautiful and unique and made to the highest standard. It just has to be something people want.' He added that his family's investment in Urban Jürgensen was long-term. 'Our hope would be to never sell it,' he said. 'We want to pass it down through generations.'
CBS News
09-04-2025
- Business
- CBS News
California officials seem receptive to State Farm Insurance's emergency rate hike request at Oakland hearing
At an Oakland hearing Tuesday, attorneys for State Farm Insurance made their case for an emergency rate hike that could impact insurance rates for millions of Californians. State Farm -- the state's largest insurer -- is asking California's Department of Insurance for a 17% emergency rate hike. But first, they will have to convince a judge. The company has already put in other rate requests over the past year, but this emergency request comes as a direct response to the deadly Los Angeles County wildfires in January which destroyed more than 18 buildings -- most of them homes. State Farm estimates it will have to pay out roughly $7.6 billion to fire survivors. The company says those payouts will deplete its reserves. A consumer watchdog argues policy holders shouldn't be on the hook. While there wasn't a lot of drama on the first day of the hearing, it is part of a process that will likely dramatically increase the amount it costs to buy homeowners insurance in California With catastrophic wildfires becoming commonplace in California, the home insurance market is in crisis. State Farm says it's been slowly losing money for the last ten years. On Tuesday in Oakland, its lawyers sat before Administrative Law Judge Karl Seligman to argue that an interim rate hike is justified to keep the company solvent. "State Farm General's surplus, which is the money that's available to pay claims, has fallen from about $4 billion in 2015 to about $1 billion in 2024," said State Farm counsel Katherine Wellington. "Following the fires in Los Angeles, State Farm General has estimated that its surplus will decline to about $600 million." They said that's not nearly enough to pay claims if another disaster should strike. There are even warnings that the company's policies soon may not be acceptable to some lenders for people seeking mortgage loans. The company is asking Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara for the emergency rate hike that would be imposed on all State Farm policy holders statewide to refill its cash reserve. At the hearing, state officials seemed sympathetic to the idea. "It is not in California consumers' best interest to allow State Farm General, the largest property insurer in California by far with 20% market share, to go bankrupt or to otherwise withdraw from the California market," said California Department of Insurance attorney Nikki Kennedy. Harvey Rosenfield, founder of the state and national advocacy group Consumer Watchdog , argues otherwise. The group was also party to the hearing. Rosenfield said Prop 103, which regulates the state's insurance market, requires that companies first prove that they need rate increases. He says State Farm has been reluctant to do that. "The way it's been engineered by State Farm, it's a fast track," said Rosenfield. "They want the commissioner to approve their rate increase now, and then figure it out later whether it was justified or not. That's not how the law works in California." There's reason to be skeptical. State Farm was requesting a 30% increase last June, before the Los Angeles county wildfires. After the fires, they initially reduced that amount to 22%. Now that they're being required to show proof, they announced at the hearing that they've lowered the request to 17%. As a result, Consumer Watchdog attorneys asked the judge to strike the evidence being presented. "We've been demanding this information for nine months. And last night, on the eve of this hearing, State Farm sent us six documents," said Rosenfield. "We haven't even had a chance to look at it." However, industry expert Karl Susman told CBS News Bay Area he thinks Consumer Watchdog is just stalling the process. "Can we just get the facts here?" Susman asked. "If they need the rate increases, show us the proof. Nobody cares if it was submitted an hour late or a day late. If the proof exists, let's see it. Let the insurance commissioner decide what he's going to do." Lara may have already decided. He gave provisional approval of the 22% rate hike last month and said he will let the judge decide if it's justified. At the hearing, the California Department of Insurance's lawyers were clear on the state's position. "Normal rules don't apply," said Kennedy. "We're on the Titanic and we see the iceberg. Now is not the time to argue about where to put the deck chairs. There is still time, your honor, to turn this ship around. If we don't, over three million Californians are going in the water. And there are not enough life boats." It's probably not a stretch to compare California's insurance market to a sinking ship. Now the judge will decide if State Farm's claims of poverty actually hold water.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Fishermen catch, release great white shark off NC coast
Fishermen Luke Beard and Jason Rosenfeld caught and released a shark Tuesday off the coast of Cape Hatteras on Tuesday. Research group tags 'largest ever' white shark off East Coast 'The biggest priority is keeping the fish safe and get a good release on all fish that we catch,' Beard said. 'I was about in tears after we released that fish, because it's emotional, yeah, that you never know if you're ever going to be able to do that in your lifetime.' The fishermen adhered to state law by releasing the shark without removing it from the water, ensuring the animal's safety and compliance with regulations. 'We are extremely passionate about these animals,' Rosenfield said. According to the fishermen, the shark was estimated to be between 12 and 13 feet long and weighed more than a thousand pounds. 'We are extremely passionate about these animals,' Rosenfield said. However, these estimates have not been independently verified. The encounter highlights the importance of following state laws designed to protect marine life, as demonstrated by Beard and Rosenfeld's responsible actions. VIDEO: Great white shark 'Freya' revisits the Carolinas
