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Business Wire
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Wire
Coast Funding Closes Senior Credit Facility with Plains Commerce Bank
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Coast Funding, a leading provider of alternative financing for small and mid-sized businesses, announced today the successful closing of a senior credit facility with Plains Commerce Bank, a South Dakota-based, FDIC-insured institution with over $1.2 billion in assets. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. This milestone significantly enhances Coast's funding capacity, enabling the company to serve more clients, deliver faster approvals, and offer more competitive rates. 'This transaction is a meaningful endorsement of the strength of our portfolio, our underwriting discipline, and our team,' said Matt Price, Founder and CEO of Coast Funding. 'Plains Commerce has been a valued partner for the past three years. This facility is the natural evolution of our relationship and a critical step forward in executing our long-term vision.' Earlier this year, Plains Commerce Bank introduced its proprietary Plains Pay platform—a modern treasury management solution designed to provide the fintech sector with efficient ACH, wire, payment processing, and warehouse lending capabilities. 'Coast Funding has demonstrated exceptional growth and a strong commitment to serving small businesses,' said Chris Wasmund, COO of Plains Commerce Bank. 'We're proud to support their continued expansion and be part of a partnership that helps entrepreneurs thrive.' About Coast Funding Founded in 2021, Coast Funding is a proven leader in alternative financing for businesses across the U.S. The company offers products including business lines of credit, short-term business loans, revenue-based funding, and equipment financing. Coast differentiates by combining best in class technology with an old school relationship-based approach. The company has an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau and is rated 4.8 stars by TrustPilot. For more information, visit About Plains Commerce Bank Founded in 1931, Plains Commerce Bank is a privately held, FDIC-insured community bank headquartered in South Dakota. The bank offers a full range of commercial banking solutions focused on service, trust, and long-term partnership. For more information, visit
New York Post
10-07-2025
- Science
- New York Post
EPA's Lee Zeldin publishes facts page debunking claims that ‘chemtrails' alter weather
WASHINGTON — Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin rolled out a new facts page Thursday debunking wild claims — including from his fellow Republicans — that so-called 'chemtrails' are being sprayed from aircraft to change the weather, alter populations or even control people's minds. In a video message accompanying the launch, Zeldin said the new webpages were written to inform 'anyone who's ever looked up to the streaks in the sky and asked, 'What the heck is going on?'' 'We did the legwork, looked at the science, consulted agency experts, and pulled in relevant outside information to put these online resources together,' he added. Advertisement 'Everything we know about contrails to solar geoengineering will be in there.' The EPA website explains how condensation trails, or 'contrails,' are common exhaust clouds left behind by high-altitude aircraft and visible to Americans gazing up at the sky 'for the same reason that you can see the exhaust from your vehicle or your own breath on a cold day.' 4 In a video message accompanying the launch, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said the new webpages were written to inform 'anyone who's ever looked up to the streaks in the sky and asked, 'What the heck is going on?'' U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Advertisement 'Contrails are a normal effect of jet aircraft operations and have been since its earliest days of air travel,' the agency stated. 'If you are seeing a lot of contrails in your area it is because there are a lot of jet aircraft flying overhead.' By contrast, according to the EPA, 'chemtrails' is 'a term some people use to inaccurately claim that contrails resulting from routine air traffic are actually an intentional release of dangerous chemicals or biological agents at high altitudes for a variety of nefarious purposes, including population control, mind control, or attempts to geoengineer Earth or modify the weather.' Low-altitude, propeller aircraft disperse chemicals at times, but only 'for legitimate purposes like firefighting or farming,' the agency said on its website. 'The federal government is not aware of there ever being a contrail intentionally formed over the United States for the purpose of geoengineering or weather modification,' it added. Advertisement 4 Zeldin clarified: 'The enthusiasm for experiments that would pump pollutants into the high atmosphere has set off alarm bells here at the Trump EPA.' Getty Images 'The enthusiasm for experiments that would pump pollutants into the high atmosphere has set off alarm bells here at the Trump EPA,' Zeldin noted in his video, adding that his staff have been 'seeing headlines about private actors and even governments looking to blot out the sun in the name of stopping global warming' — despite the federal government not attempting any small- or large-scale solar geoengineering. Only one private company, South Dakota-based Make Sunsets, has experimented in the US with solar geoengineering through what is known as stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) and marine cloud brightening (MCB) to potentially lower the Earth's temperature. Those kinds of research are distinct from weather modification — the most common of which is cloud seeding — that the US government has been involved with in the past. Advertisement 4 Most cloud seeding is carried out to learn how to combat heavy droughts and 'primarily funded at the state or local level,' according to a December 2024 Government Accountability Office report. AP In 1947, a public-private partnership between branches of the US military and General Electric Laboratories dumped dry ice into a hurricane near Florida's coastline, but there's been no indication then or since that such tinkering could modify a storm's intensity. A classified Pentagon project, dubbed 'Operation Popeye,' also tried 'to extend monsoon season' during the Vietnam War 'to disrupt supply routes in North Vietnam and Laos.' Most cloud seeding is carried out to learn how to combat heavy droughts and is 'primarily funded at the state or local level,' according to a December 2024 Government Accountability Office report. Some states — including Florida and Tennessee — have passed laws prohibiting activities to change temperatures or modify the intensity of the sunlight or the weather more generally. 4 Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) promised earlier this month to introduce 'a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather.' ALAA BADARNEH/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock There have also been efforts at the federal level, with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) promising earlier this month to introduce 'a bill that prohibits the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather, temperature, climate, or sunlight intensity.' 'It will be a felony offense,' declared the Georgia Republican, claiming the bill's text matches legislation already passed in Florida. 'I have been researching weather modification and working with the legislative counsel for months writing this bill.' Advertisement Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to a viral video last August claiming to show the dispersal of chemicals into the atmosphere as a 'crime' that he would 'stop' for good. At an April 29 town hall event with TV host Dr. Phil McGraw, Kennedy blamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for possibly spraying bromium, aluminum, and strontium into the sky. 'A lot of it now is coming out of the jet fuel. You know, those materials are put in jet fuel. I'm going to do everything in my power to stop it,' he told a concerned audience member. Advertisement 'EPA shares many of the same concerns when it comes to potential threats to human health and the environment, especially from solar geoengineering activities,' Zeldin declared in his video message. 'Prior to now, EPA has never been this proactive to raise awareness about concerns with geoengineering and to stop this activity from being scaled up.'
Gizmodo
08-07-2025
- Science
- Gizmodo
Record-Setting Dark Matter Detector Comes Up Empty—and That's Good News
WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles) are one of the most serious contenders for dark matter—the 'missing' mass supposedly constituting 85% of our universe. Given its elusiveness, dark matter tests the patience and creativity of physicists. But the latest results from LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ), the South Dakota-based detector, may have brought scientists a small step closer to catching WIMPs in action. In a recent Physical Review Letters paper, scientists analyzed 280 days' worth of data from LUX-ZEPLIN, reporting the tightest ever upper limit on WIMPs. The result—a near fivefold improvement—demonstrates how physicists are increasingly getting better at circumventing the problem that dark matter is, well, dark; the elusive stuff evades any detection method that depends on materials interacting with visible light or other types of radiation. There's ample evidence to suggest that dark matter does in fact exist, including numerous astrophysical observations hinting at some invisible matter exerting gravitational force on objects we can see. Physicists, as a result, tend to use materials that we can see, such as liquid forms of heavyweight elements like xenon, and simply wait for some unknown particle to interact with it. That strategy—waiting for particles to interact with heavy elements—is a well-tested approach for detecting WIMPs, hypothetical particles that interact with gravity but on a scale so tiny that only the most sensitive detectors might catch a glimpse. The LUX-ZEPLIN experiment, located one mile underground in a decommissioned South Dakota gold mine, employs nearly 15,000 pounds (7 tons) of liquid xenon. The chemical element's high atomic mass and density make it potentially easier for scientists to detect any unknown particles that may pass through the detector. Also, liquid xenon is transparent, preventing any unwanted noise—usually arising from radioactive matter around the detector—from spoiling an experiment. 'If you think of the search for dark matter like looking for buried treasure, we've dug almost five times deeper than anyone else has in the past,' said Scott Kravitz, a physicist at the University of Texas at Austin and deputy coordinator for LZ, in a press release. 'That's something you don't do with a million shovels—you do it by inventing a new tool.' The latest experiment also represents the first time the LZ team applied a technique called 'salting,' in which false WIMP signals were added in advance. This helped the researchers—who, of course, would love to find dark matter—avoid bias and stay skeptical of potentially promising signals. 'There's a human tendency to want to see patterns in data, so it's really important when you enter this new regime that no bias wanders in,' said Scott Haselschwart, a physicist at the University of Michigan and LZ physics coordinator, in the same release. 'If you make a discovery, you want to get it right.' The next steps for the LZ experiment are to continue pressing against the upper limit for WIMPs and utilize the detector's cutting-edge technology to probe other interesting and rare physics processes, explained Amy Cottle, a physicist at University College London also involved with LZ, in the statement. 'We've demonstrated how strong we are as a WIMP search machine, and we're going to keep running and getting even better—but there's lots of other things we can do with this detector,' she said.
Newsweek
04-07-2025
- Politics
- Newsweek
Fresh Push to Add Donald Trump to Mount Rushmore: 'Essential'
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. House Republican Andy Ogles of Tennessee has asked Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to "put Trump on Mt. Rushmore," the South Dakota-based national memorial celebrating four iconic presidents, to mark his "recent achievements," and it's not the first time someone has suggested the addition. Newsweek contacted Representative Ogles and the Department of the Interior for comment on Friday via email outside of regular office hours. Why It Matters Ogles' proposal indicates the strength of grassroots Republican loyalty to President Trump, with a survey conducted between June 23 and 26 finding 79 percent of registered GOP voters approve of his performance. However, this was down from 86 percent in March. The National Park Service has previously said that any fresh carvings on Mount Rushmore would be impractical, and any official move to add Trump would almost certainly spark serious opposition. What To Know Ogles sent a letter to Burgum, a copy of which was seen by The Hill, on Thursday, urging him to "explore the addition" of Trump's sculpture to Mount Rushmore to recognize the president's "accomplishments in restoring American greatness." The Tennessee Republican added that such a move would have the "benefits of elevating the dignity and relevance of the site, thus increasing both its grandeur and its visitor traffic, will accrue to South Dakota, the Lakota Sioux, and the broader area." In an X post also made on Thursday, Ogles said: "I'm asking Secretary Burgum to put Trump on Mt. Rushmore. "Given the scale and scope of President Trump's recent achievements—especially the impending enactment of the Big Beautiful Bill, the historic act that will ignite America's Golden Age—it is essential that we immortalize President Trump's likeness on Mount Rushmore." A mock-up depicting President Trump on Mount Rushmore released by GOP Representative Andy Ogles. A mock-up depicting President Trump on Mount Rushmore released by GOP Representative Andy Ogles. Rep. Andy Ogles/X Thursday saw the House approve Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill' in a 218 vs 214 vote, meaning the president will now be able to sign it into law as it narrowly passed the Senate earlier this week. The package includes tax cuts, additional funding for border security and the military, cuts to Medicaid and food stamps and a $5 trillion increase in the U.S. debt ceiling. Mount Rushmore was constructed in South Dakota's Black Hills between 1927 and 1941 and features head sculptures of iconic presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The site is controversial as it was taken from the Sioux Nation illegally, and in the 1980s, the Supreme Court ordered the federal government to pay $105 million in compensation. In January, Florida House Republican Anna Paulina Luna announced a bill calling for Trump to be added to Mount Rushmore, though it didn't proceed to a hearing. What People Are Saying In his X post, Ogles added: "Like Washington, Trump did not seek his position for glory but out of love for his country, championing American independence and reshaping the presidency with dynamism, clarity, and purpose. "Like Jefferson, he expanded America's horizons by pursuing new frontiers and breaking away from deep state tyrants. "Like Teddy Roosevelt, Trump took on entrenched interests, reinvigorated American industry, and avenged the working class against bureaucratic bloat and corporate corruption. "The legacy of Mount Rushmore cannot remain frozen in stone; it must evolve to reflect the full arc of American history, including its most recent and transformative chapter." Speaking to the Black Hill Pioneer newspaper in 2020, Mount Rushmore National Memorial Chief of Interpretation and Education Maureen McGee-Ballinger said: "The rock that surrounds the sculpted faces is not suitable for additional carving." What Happens Next There is no indication that the federal government has any immediate plans to add Trump to Mount Rushmore, and any such move would almost certainly spark controversy and legal challenges.
San Francisco Chronicle
25-06-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Daktronics: Fiscal Q4 Earnings Snapshot
BROOKINGS, S.D. (AP) — BROOKINGS, S.D. (AP) — Daktronics Inc. (DAKT) on Wednesday reported a loss of $9.4 million in its fiscal fourth quarter. On a per-share basis, the Brookings, South Dakota-based company said it had a loss of 19 cents. Earnings, adjusted for non-recurring costs, came to 18 cents per share. The video display maker posted revenue of $172.6 million in the period. For the year, the company reported a loss of $10.1 million, or 21 cents per share. Revenue was reported as $756.5 million. _____
